Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai

1. Introduction
• உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadesa Undiyar)
• உள்ளது நாற்பது (Ulladu Narpadu)
• உள்ளது நாற்பது – அனுபந்தம் (Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham)
• ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் (Ekanma Panchakam)
• அப்பளப் பாட்டு (Appala Pattu)
• ஆன்ம வித்தை (Anma-Viddai)
2. உபதேசத் தனிப்பாக்கள் (Upadesa Tanippakkal)
3. About this translation of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai
4. Printed edition of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai
5. E-book copy for free download
6. Upadesa Undiyar – printed book and e-book
7. Spanish translation of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai

1. உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadesa-v-undiyar) is a Tamil poem of thirty verses that Sri Ramana composed in 1927 in answer to the request of Sri Muruganar, and that he later composed in Sanskrit, Telugu and Malayalam under the title Upadesa Saram, the ‘Essence of Spiritual Instructions’.
   
   In these thirty verses Sri Ramana teaches us in a concise but extremely clear manner the exact means by which we can attain our natural state of true self-knowledge and thereby be liberated from the illusory bondage of karma or action, which appears to exist so long as we mistake ourself to be this mind and body, the instruments that do action.
   
   He begins by saying in verse 1 that since action is jada (non-conscious), it does not give fruit by itself but only in accordance with the ordainment of God, and then in verse 2 he teaches us that no action can give liberation, since every action leaves a ‘seed’ or vasana — a propensity or impulse to do such an action again — and thereby immerses and drowns us in the vast ocean of action.
   
   However, though no action can be a direct means to liberation, in verse 3 he teaches us that if we do action without any desire for its fruit but motivated only by love for God, it will purify our mind and thereby enable us to recognise the correct path to liberation. Thus he teaches us that the practice of nishkamya karma or ‘desireless action’ is not a separate yoga or spiritual path but is only a preliminary stage of the path of bhakti or ‘devotion’, because if we practise any form of nishkamya karma, what will purify our mind is not the karma itself, but only the love and desirelessness with which we do it.
   
   Then in verses 4 to 7 he discusses the various kinds of nishkamya karma — actions that we can do by body, speech or mind without desire but only for the love of God — and he grades them according to their efficacy in purifying our mind. Actions that we do by mind are more purifying than those that we do by speech, and those that we do by speech are more purifying than those that we do by body. Thus the most effective action that we can do to purify our mind is dhyana or meditation (upon God), and in verse 7 he says that uninterrupted meditation is more effective than intermittent meditation (that is, meditation that is interrupted by other thoughts).
   
   However, so long as we meditate upon God as something other than ourself, our meditation is only a mental activity — a karma — because it involves a movement of our attention away from ourself towards the thought of God, which is other than ourself. Therefore in verse 8 he teaches us rather than anya-bhava (meditation upon God as other than ourself), ananya-bhava (meditation upon him as none other than ourself) is the best of all forms of meditation.
   
   That is, meditation upon God as ‘I’, our own essential self, will purify our mind more effectively than meditation upon any other thing. Since such ananya-bhava or self-meditation does not involve any movement of our attention away from ourself, it is not an action or karma, but is our true state of ‘just being’ — our natural state of clear thought-free self-conscious being, in which we do not rise as a mind (a separate object-knowing consciousness) to think of or experience anything other than ourself.
   
   Since God is truly nothing other than our own essential self — our true self-conscious being, ‘I am’ — in verse 9 Sri Ramana says that being in our sat-bhava (our ‘true being’ or ‘state of being’), which transcends bhavana (imagination or meditation as a mental activity), by the strength of our ananya-bhava or self-meditation, is para-bhakti tattva — the true state of supreme devotion. In other words, though the path of bhakti or devotion begins with the practice of nishkamya karma (acts of love done without desire but as an expression of our love for God alone), it finally culminates in the thought-free and therefore action-free state of true being, which alone is the real form of God.
   
   Sri Ramana then concludes this first series of verses by saying in verse 10 that subsiding and abiding thus in God, who is our true self and the source from which we have risen as this seemingly separate consciousness that we call ‘mind’ or ‘ego’, is the true practice and goal not only of [nishkamya] karma and bhakti, but also of yoga (the path of raja yoga, which consists of breath-restraint and various other exercises aimed at restraining and subduing the mind) and jnana (the path of ‘knowledge’, which is the direct means by which we can know ourself as we really are).
   
   In verses 11 to 15 he explains the essence of raja yoga, with particular reference to the practice of pranayama or ‘breath-restraint’. In verses 11 and 12 he explains that restraining the breath is a means to restrain the mind, because like two branches of a single tree, breath and mind share a common root or activating power, so when one subsides, the other will also subside. However, in verse 13 he points out that subsidence of mind is of two types, laya or abeyance, which is temporary, and nasa or destruction, which is permanent.
   
   He begins verse 14 with the words ஒடுக்க வளியை ஒடுங்கும் உளத்தை (odukka valiyai odungum ulattai), which mean ‘mind, which subsides when [we] restrain [our] breath’, implying that the mind will subside only temporarily (that is, not in nasa but only in laya) when the breath is restrained. He then says that when we send our mind on ஓர் வழி (or vazhi), its form will cease, die or be destroyed (that is, it will subside not just in laya but in nasa).
   
   The word ஓர் (or) is both a form of ஒரு (oru), which means ‘one’ or ‘unique’, and the root of a verb that means ‘investigate’, ‘examine’, ‘scrutinise’, ‘consider attentively’ or ‘know’, so ஓர் வழி (or vazhi) can mean either ஒரு வழி (oru vazhi), the ‘one path’ or ‘unique path’, or ஓரும் வழி (orum vazhi), the ‘path of investigating’ or ‘path of knowing’ (that is, the path of investigating and knowing our essential self).
   
   Thus, just as he teaches us in verse 8 that the paths of nishkamya karma and bhakti must lead to and eventually merge in the path of jnana, which is the simple practice of atma-vichara or self-investigation, so he teaches us in verse 14 that the path of yoga must likewise lead to and eventually merge in the path of jnana. In verse 8 he describes this practice of atma-vichara as ananya-bhava, ‘meditation upon that which is not other [than ourself]’, and in verse 14 he describes it as or vazhi, the ‘one path’ or ‘path of investigating and knowing [ourself]’.
   
   As Sri Ramana once said, though various paths may help to purify our mind and thereby lead us close to the citadel of true self-knowledge, in order to actually enter that citadel we must pass through the only gateway, which is the practice of atma-vichara or self-investigation, because we cannot know ourself as we really are unless we keenly scrutinise ourself with an intense love to discover ‘who am I?’.
   
   In verse 15 he concludes this series of verses about the path of yoga by saying that for the great atma-yogi, whose mind has thereby been destroyed and who is thus established permanently as the reality, no action exists to do. That is, like the actions that constitute the path of nishkamya karma and the initial stages of the path of bhakti, the actions that constitute the initial stages of the path of yoga must eventually lead us to the practice of atma-vichara, which alone will destroy our mind and thereby establish us in our natural state of action-free being.
   
   Since our mind is the root cause of all karma or action, when it subsides all actions will subside along with it, and when it ceases to exist all actions will cease forever. Like our mind, which causes it to appear, action or ‘doing’ is an unnatural and unreal adjunct that we have superimposed upon our real nature, which is simple non-dual self-conscious being, ‘I am’. Therefore when our mind is dissolved and destroyed by the clear light of pure thought-free self-consciousness — which we can uncover and expose only by means of the practice of atma-vichara or vigilant self-attentiveness — all karma or action will be dissolved and destroyed along with it.
   
   Having thus exposed the unreality of karma and its inability to give true self-knowledge in the first fifteen verses, in the next fifteen verses Sri Ramana discusses in greater detail the action-free path of jnana — which is atma-vichara, the simple non-dual practice of just being keenly and vigilantly self-attentive — and our natural state of being, which we can experience only by means of such self-attentiveness.
   
   In verse 16 he gives us a clear and practical definition of true knowledge, saying that it is the non-dual knowledge that we will experience when our mind ceases to know வெளி விடயங்கள் (veli vidayangal) — external vishayas (objects or experiences), that is, anything other than ourself — and instead knows only its own essential ஒளி உரு (oli uru) or ‘form of light’, that is, its true form of consciousness, ‘I am’.
   
   In verse 17 he affirms the unreality of our mind and teaches us the direct means by which we can experience its non-existence and the reality that underlies its false appearance, saying that when we scrutinise its form without forgetting — that is, without pramada or self-negligence — we will discover that there is no such thing as ‘mind’ at all. This is for everyone, he says, the நேர் மார்க்கம் (ner marggam) — the straight, direct, correct and proper path or means to experience true self-knowledge.
   
   In verse 18 he clarifies exactly what he means in verse 17 by மனத்தின் உரு (manattin uru), the ‘mind’s form’ that we should investigate or scrutinise, saying that thoughts alone constitute the mind, and that of all thoughts the thought ‘I’ is the மூலம் (mulam), the root, base, foundation, origin or source. That is, that which thinks all other thoughts is itself a thought — our primal thought ‘I’. Whereas all other thoughts are non-conscious objects, which do not know anything, this root thought ‘I’ is the conscious subject that thinks and knows them. Since this thinking thought ‘I’ is the source and foundation of all other thoughts, and since it is therefore the only essential element of our mind — the only element that endures so long as our mind is active — what we call ‘mind’ is in essence just this first thought ‘I’.
   
   Thus the meaning clearly implied by verse 18 is that the practice of மனத்தின் உருவை மறவாது உசாவுதல் (manattin uruvai maravadu ucavudal) or ‘scrutinising the form of the mind without forgetting [that is, without pramada, negligence, inadvertence, carelessness or slackness in our self-attentiveness]’ that he prescribes in verse 17 is the effort that we must make to vigilantly scrutinise our primal thought ‘I’, which is the only essential form of our mind. This effort to scrutinise ‘I’ is the true practice of atma-vichara or ‘self-investigation’, which he calls jnana-vichara or ‘knowledge-investigation’ in the next verse.
   
   In verse 19 he explains both the practice and the result of ஞான விசாரம் (jnana-vicharam) — ‘knowledge-investigation’ or scrutiny of our primal knowledge, ‘I am’ — saying that when we scrutinise within ourself, ‘what is the source from which our mind rises as I?’, this false ‘I’ will die.
   
   In verse 20 he says that in the place (our ‘heart’ or the innermost core of our being) where this false ‘I’ thus merges, the one reality will certainly ‘shine forth’ (that is, will be experienced) spontaneously as ‘I [am] I’, and that that, which is our real self, is itself the purna or whole (the infinite totality or fullness of sat-chit-ananda — being, consciousness and happiness).
   
   In verse 21 he says that this infinite reality that we will thus experience as ‘I [am] I’ is always the true import of the word ‘I’, because in sleep, even though our finite ‘I’ (our mind or ego) has ceased to exist, we ourself do not cease to exist. That is, since we exist even in the absence of our mind in sleep, and since we cannot truly be anything in whose absence we continue to exist, our real self (the true import of the word ‘I’) must be that which we are at all times and in all states. That is only our essential consciousness of being, ‘I am’, which exists permanently — in waking, dream and dreamless sleep — and which we will experience clearly only when we scrutinise our mind and discover that it truly does not exist as such, because its sole reality is this essential self-consciousness, ‘I am’, which underlies and supports its false appearance (just as a rope is the sole reality that underlies and supports the false appearance of an imaginary snake seen lying on the ground in the dim light of dusk).
   
   In verse 22 he says that since our ‘five sheaths’ — our body, life, mind and intellect, and the seeming ‘darkness’ or absence of knowledge that we experience in sleep — are all jada (non-conscious) and asat (non-existent or unreal), they are not our real ‘I’, which is chit (consciousness) and sat (being or reality).
   
   In verse 23 he continues to discuss the subject of consciousness and being (chit and sat), which are the nature of our real ‘I’, and affirms that they are not two separate things but are actually one absolutely non-dual reality. That is, he says that since there is no consciousness other than being to know being, being itself is consciousness, and consciousness alone is ‘we’ (our true self or essential being, ‘I am’).
   
   In verses 24 to 26 he discusses the true nature of God, how we are related to him and how we can experience him as he really is. In verse 24 he says that in their true nature, which is being, God and souls are only one substance, essence or reality, and that what makes them appear to be different is only the souls’ consciousness of adjuncts. That is, because we imagine certain inessential adjuncts, such as our body and mind, to be our real self, we experience ourself as being separate from God, who is actually none other than our essential being or true self, ‘I am’.
   
   Therefore in verse 25 Sri Ramana teaches us that if we set aside all our adjuncts and know ourself as we really are, that itself is knowing God, because God exists and shines as ‘I am’, our own essential self.
   
   In verse 26 he clarifies what he means in verse 25 by the words ‘knowing [our] self’, saying that since self is absolutely non-dual, ‘knowing self’ is not a dualistic state of objective knowing, but is merely the state of ‘being self’. That is, since our real self is eternally self-conscious, to know ourself as we really are we need not do anything, but simply need to be as we really are — that is, clearly conscious of nothing other than ourself, our own essential being, ‘I am’.
   
   Since knowing self is only being self, and since God is nothing other than self, Sri Ramana concludes this series of three verses by ending verse 26 with the words தன்மய நிட்டை ஈது (tanmaya nitthai idu), which mean ‘this [state of knowing and being our real self] is tanmaya-nishtha [the state of being firmly established as tat or ‘it’, the one absolute reality called God or brahman]’. That is, since God is our own real self, knowing and being self is knowing and being God. In other words, we can experience God as he really is only being as he really is, and we can be as he really is only by ceasing to be this mind or ego, the false finite consciousness that thinks and knows things that seem to be other than itself.
   
   In verse 27 he further affirms the absolutely non-dual and therefore ‘otherless’ nature of true self-knowledge, saying that the knowledge which is completely devoid of both knowledge and ignorance (about anything other than ourself) is alone true knowledge, and that this true self-knowledge is the sole reality, because in truth nothing (other than ourself) exists for us to know.
   
   In verse 28 he affirms the infinite and eternal nature of true self-knowledge, and also affirms that our real self is not only infinite being and infinite consciousness but also infinite happiness, saying that if we know ourself by scrutinising ‘what is the real nature of myself?’ (‘who am I?’), then we will discover ourself to be beginningless, endless and unbroken sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss).
   
   That is, since self-knowledge is our true nature, it has no beginning or end, either in time, space or any other dimension, and it has no break or interruption. Any dimension such as time or space, or any beginning, end or break in such a dimension, is only an imagination created by our mind and therefore exists only in our mind, so when we know ourself as we really are and thereby discover this mind to be truly non-existent, we will know that no dimension or any beginning, end or break has ever really existed.
   
   Therefore, since the state of true self-knowledge (which is also called the state of ‘liberation’ from self-ignorance) has no beginning, end or break, no state of self-ignorance (or ‘bondage’) has ever truly existed. Our present so-called ‘bondage’ of self-ignorance and the so-called ‘liberation’ from that ‘bondage’ that we seek to attain by knowing ourself as we really are, are both mere thoughts, which appear to be real only in the distorted perspective of our mind.
   
   Liberation would be real only if the bondage from which we wish to be liberated were real, and bondage would be real only if the mind that is bound were real, but since this mind is an unreal imagination, its present bondage and future liberation are equally unreal. Therefore in verse 29 Sri Ramana teaches us that the supreme happiness of true self-knowledge transcends the false duality of ‘bondage’ and ‘liberation’, saying that abiding permanently in this state of true self-knowledge as para-sukha (supreme or transcendent happiness), which is devoid of both bondage and liberation, is abiding as God has commanded (or abiding in the service of God).
   
   Finally Sri Muruganar concludes this poem by saying in verse 30 that Sri Ramana, who is our real self, has taught us that our natural state (of thought-free non-dual self-conscious being, ‘I am I’), which is what we will experience if we know that which remains after ‘I’ (our mind of ego) has ceased to exist, alone is true tapas (austerity, asceticism or self-denial).
   
   Thus Upadesa Undiyar (or Upadesa Saram, the ‘Essence of [all] Spiritual Instructions’, as it is called in Sanskrit, Telugu and Malayalam) is a clear, precise and complete exposition of the means by which we can experience our natural state of pristine, thought-free and absolutely egoless self-conscious being.
   
   However, though Upadesa Undiyar is without doubt (along with Ulladu Narpadu) one of the two most important works in Upadesa Nunmalai, it is not included in this book, ஸ்ரீ ரமணோபதேச நூன்மாலை (Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai), because the translation of it that Sri Sadhu Om and I wrote was published as a separate book in 1986 and has subsequently been reprinted, and is also available as a PDF e-book (a link to which is given below in the final section of this page, Upadesa Undiyar – printed book and e-book).



2. உள்ளது நாற்பது (Ulladu Narpadu), the ‘Forty [Verses] on That Which Is’, is a Tamil poem that Sri Ramana composed in July and August 1928 when Sri Muruganar asked him to teach us the nature of the reality and the means by which we can attain it.
   
   In the title of this poem, the word உள்ளது (ulladu) is a verbal noun that means ‘that which is’ or ‘being’ (either in the sense of ‘existence’ or in the sense of ‘existing’), and is an important term that is often used in spiritual or philosophical literature to denote ‘reality’, ‘truth’, ‘that which is real’ or ‘that which really is’. Hence in a spiritual context the meaning clearly implied by ulladu is atman, our ‘real self’ or ‘spirit’.
   
   Though நாற்பது (narpadu) means ‘forty’, Ulladu Narpadu actually consists of a total of forty-two verses, two of which form the mangalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ and the remaining forty of which form the nul or main ‘text’.
   
   Like many of his other works, Sri Ramana composed Ulladu Narpadu in a poetic metre called venba, which consists of four lines, with four feet in each of the first three lines and three feet in the last line, but since devotees used to do regular parayana or recitation of his works in his presence, he converted the forty-two verses of Ulladu Narpadu into a single verse in kalivenba metre by lengthening the third foot of the fourth line of each verse and adding a fourth foot to it, thereby linking it to the next verse and making it easy for devotees to remember the continuity while reciting.
   
   Since the one-and-a-half feet that he thus added to the fourth line of each verse may contain one or more words, which are usually called the ‘link words’, they not only facilitate recitation but also enrich the meaning of either the preceding or the following verse.
   
   Since Sri Ramana formed this kalivenba version of உள்ளது நாற்பது (Ulladu Narpadu) by linking the forty-two verses into a single verse, the term நாற்பது (narpadu) or ‘forty’ is not appropriate for it, so he renamed it உபதேசக் கலிவெண்பா (Upadesa Kalivenba).
   
   An English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of this kalivenba version of Ulladu Narpadu was published on pages 217 to 222 of the October 1981 issue of The Mountain Path, and in May 2008 a copy of it was posted by David Godman in his blog under the title Ulladu Narpadu Kalivenba.
   
   In the first verse of the mangalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ to Ulladu Narpadu (which I have discussed in more detail in the introduction to this book, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, and also in a separate article, The crest-jewel of Sri Ramana’s teachings) Sri Ramana summarises in an extremely clear and powerful manner the essence of his entire teaching about the nature of the reality and the means by which we can attain it, and thus this verse is in effect both a summary of the central import of Upadesa Undiyar and an introduction to the central theme of Ulladu Narpadu.
   
   In the first two lines of this verse he teaches us the nature of reality, firstly by asking a rhetorical question, ‘உள்ளது அலது உள்ளவுணர்வு உள்ளதோ?’ (ulladu aladu ulla-v-unarvu ullado?), which means ‘other than being, does being-consciousness exist?’ and which implies that (as he taught us in verse 23 of Upadesa Undiyar) our consciousness of being, ‘I am’, is not other than our being itself. In other words, our reality or being is self-conscious — that is, it itself knows its own being, not by the aid of any other thing, but simply by being itself.
   
   In the second sentence of this verse he continues to explain the nature of reality, firstly with a subsidiary clause in which he says ‘உள்ளபொருள் உள்ளல் அற உள்ளத்தே உள்ளதால்’ (ulla-porul ullal-ara ullatte ulladal), which means ‘since [this] being-substance exists in [our] heart devoid of thought’, and secondly with a relative clause, ‘உள்ளம் எனும்’ (ullam enum), which means ‘which is called heart [or ‘am’]’ and which qualifies the term உள்ளபொருள் (ulla-porul) or ‘being-substance’ in the main clause.
   
   That is, the reality or true being is not only self-conscious but also devoid of thought, and it exists in our ‘heart’ (the innermost core of ourself) as our ‘heart’. In other words, the reality is our true self — our own essential being, which we always experience as ‘I am’.
   
   After explaining that the nature of the reality is such, in the last two lines of this verse he teaches us the means by which we can experience it as it is, firstly by concluding the second sentence with the question ‘உள்ளபொருள் உள்ளல் எவன்?’ (ulla-porul ullal evan?), which means ‘how to [or who can] think of [or meditate upon] [this] being-substance?’ and secondly by answering ‘உள்ளத்தே உள்ளபடி உள்ளதே உள்ளல் உணர்’ (ullatte ullapadi ullade ullal unar), which means ‘know that only being in [our] heart as it is [or as we are] [is] thinking [or meditating] [upon our essential being-substance]’.
   
   The key words in this final sentence are உள்ளபடி உள்ளதே (ullapadi ullade), which means, ‘only being as it is [or as we are]’. Here உள்ளபடி (ullapadi), ‘as it is’ or ‘as we are’, means ‘as [our] being-substance is’, and since our ‘being-substance’ (our essential self) is self-conscious and devoid of thought, in this context these words ‘only being as it is’ clearly imply ‘only being self-conscious and devoid of thought’.
   
   Thus in this verse Sri Ramana teaches us that we can truly meditate upon and experience the one absolute reality, which is our own self-conscious being, ‘I am’, by just being exclusively self-conscious — that is, clearly conscious of nothing other than our own essential being, ‘I am’ — and therefore free of all thoughts.
   
   Since no thought can exist unless we think it, and since we cannot think any thought without attending to it, when our entire attention is concentrated only on ourself, no thought can exist. Therefore we can ‘be as it is [or as we are]’ simply by being keenly self-attentive and thereby excluding all thoughts of anything other than ourself. This is the simple essence of the practical teachings of Sri Ramana.
   
   Whereas in the first verse of the mangalam Sri Ramana explains this practice of ‘just being as we [really] are’ in terms of the path of jnana (knowledge) or atma-vichara (self-investigation), in the second verse of the mangalam he explains it in terms of the path of bhakti (devotion) or self-surrender. That is, when we are vigilantly self-attentive, we thereby exclude not only all thoughts but also the thinker of those thoughts — our thinking mind itself — so this practice of atma-vichara is the only truly effective means by which we can surrender our false self entirely, as Sri Ramana says in the thirteenth paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?):

   Being completely absorbed in atma-nishtha [self-abidance], not giving even the slightest room to the rising of any other chintana [thought] except atma-chintana [self-contemplation or self-attentiveness], alone is giving ourself to God. ...

   In the second verse of the mangalam Sri Ramana says that mature people who have an intense inner fear of death will take refuge at the feet of God, who is devoid of death and birth, depending upon him as their sole protection, and that by their surrender they will experience death (the death or dissolution of their finite self). He then ends the verse by asking a rhetorical question that implies that having died to their mortal self and thereby become one with the immortal spirit, they will never be troubled again by any thought of death.
   
   In this verse the words மரணபவமில்லா மகேசன் சரணமே சார்வர் (marana-bhavam-illa mahesan caraname carvar), which literally mean ‘they will take refuge at [depend upon or surrender to] the feet of the great lord, who is devoid of death and birth’, are a graphic description of the state of complete self-surrender — that is, the state in which we surrender our false finite self in the clear light of our true infinite self.
   
   The term மரணபவமில்லா மகேசன் (marana-bhavam-illa mahesan), ‘the great lord [or God], who is devoid of death and birth’, is a poetic description of our eternal self, and his சரணம் (caranam) or ‘feet’ is our natural state of absolutely clear non-dual self-consciousness, ‘I am’. The verb சார்வர் (carvar), ‘they will take refuge at [depend upon or surrender to]’, denotes the state in which our mind turns towards and merges in this true self-consciousness. Thus these words denote the same state of thought-free self-conscious being that he described in the previous verse as உள்ளத்தே உள்ளபடி உள்ளதே (ullatte ullapadi ullade) or ‘only being in [our] heart as it is [or as we are]’.
   
   In the first verse of the nul or main ‘text’ he establishes the truth that there is one absolute reality underlying the false appearance of all multiplicity and that everything is nothing other than this one reality, which is our own true self. That is, he says that because we see the world, accepting ஓர் முதல் (or mudal) — one primal reality, origin, source, base, substratum, ground or first cause — with a ‘power that is many’ (that is, a power that can appear as if it were many different things) is indeed certain, and that this ‘one primal reality’, which is self, is that which appears as everything: the seeing mind, the world-picture that it sees, the light of consciousness by which it sees, and the ground or underlying being that supports its seeing.
   
   In verse 2 he says that all disputes about the nature of this one reality — whether the soul, world and God are in essence all just this one reality, or whether they are eternally three separate realities — are possible only so long as our ego exists, and that abiding in our own natural state (of pure thought-free self-conscious being) is the highest achievement.
   
   In verse 3 he reiterates the same truth, asking what is the use of arguing whether the world is real or a false appearance, whether it is knowledge or ignorance, or whether it is a source of happiness or not, and pointing out the simple truth that the egoless state in which we have given up all thought of the world and known only our own essential self, thereby freeing ourself from our false ‘I’ (the mind or ego) and its thoughts about ‘one’ (non-duality) and ‘two’ (duality), is agreeable to everyone.
   
   In verse 4, by asking a rhetorical question, ‘கண் அலால் காட்சி உண்டோ?’ (kan alal katchi undo?), which means ‘is the sight otherwise than the eye?’, he teaches us a subtle but very important truth, namely that the ‘sight’ (whatever is seen or experienced) cannot be otherwise than the ‘eye’ (the consciousness that sees or experiences it). Hence he says that if we are a form (a body), the world and God will be likewise, but if we are not any form, who could see their forms, or how could we see them? He then ends this verse by saying that the real eye is only our essential self, which is the ‘endless eye’ (the infinite consciousness of being, ‘I am’).
   
   In verse 5 he says that the term ‘body’ denotes not only our physical body but all our ‘five sheaths’ (our physical body, the prana or life that animates it, our mind, our intellect and the peaceful absence of objective knowledge that we experience in sleep), and then asks rhetorically whether the world exists in the absence of such a body (implying that it does not), or whether anyone has seen the world after separating from the body (as in sleep or death).
   
   In verse 6 he says that the world is nothing other than our five kinds of sense perception (sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations), which are sensations perceived by our five senses, and then asks rhetorically whether, since our one mind knows the world though these five senses, the world exists in the absence of this mind (implying that it does not).
   
   In verse 7 he reiterates this truth that the world exists only in our mind, saying that though the world and our mind — the consciousness that knows it — arise and subside (appear and disappear) simultaneously (or as one), the world ‘shines’ (appears to exist or is made known) only by our mind, and then declares that the ‘whole’ (the infinite fullness of being or consciousness), which shines without appearing or disappearing as the ground for the appearance and disappearance (of our mind and the world), alone is the பொருள் (porul), the ‘substance’, ‘essence’ or ‘reality’ (of all that thus appears and disappears).
   
   Having discussed the reality of our experience of this world-appearance in verses 3 to 7, in verse 8 Sri Ramana discusses the reality of ‘seeing’ or experiencing God, saying that though he is the பொருள் (porul) or ‘essential reality’, which is truly devoid of name or form, it is possible to see him in name and form by worshipping him in any form, giving him any name, but that knowing one’s own உண்மை (unmai) — ‘truth’, ‘being’ or ‘am-ness’ — and thereby subsiding and becoming one with his உண்மை (unmai) is alone seeing him in truth.
   
   In verses 9 to 13 Sri Ramana discusses the reality of knowledge and ignorance and establishes the nature of true knowledge.
   
   In verse 9 he begins by teaching that all dualistic or objective knowledge depends upon ‘one’ (namely our mind, which alone experiences such knowledge), and that if we look within our mind to see what that ‘one’ is, such knowledge will cease to exist (because we will discover that our mind, upon which it depends, is itself non-existent).
   
   In verse 10 he says that knowledge and ignorance (about objects or otherness) are interdependent, each existing only in relation to the other, and that true knowledge is only the ‘knowledge’ (or consciousness) that knows the ‘self’ (the mind or ego) to whom knowledge and ignorance appear to exist (in other words, true knowledge is only the consciousness that experiences the truth that the mind — which is the sole root, base or foundation of objective knowledge and ignorance — is itself non-existent).
   
   In verse 11 he says that knowing otherness without knowing ourself who experiences such knowledge (of otherness) is not knowledge but only ignorance, and that when we know ourself (this unreal mind), who is the adhara (the support, substratum or ground) of knowledge and ignorance, they will cease to exist (since we will discover that the mind itself is non-existent).
   
   In verse 12 he says that true knowledge is not that (our mind) which knows (otherness), but only that (our real self) which is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance (about otherness), and that our real self is not a void (even though it is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance about otherness) but true knowledge, because it shines without any otherness for it to know or to make known.
   
   In verse 13 he says that self, which is jnana (knowledge or consciousness), alone is real; that manifold knowledge (knowledge or consciousness of multiplicity) is only ajnana (ignorance); and that even such ignorance, which is unreal, is nothing other than self (its only real substance), which is jnana, just as all the many ornaments, which are unreal (as separate forms), are not other than gold (the real substance of which they are made).
   
   In verses 14 to 16 Sri Ramana discusses the reality of space and time, and establishes the truth that ‘we’, who are devoid of time and space, alone are real.
   
   In verse 14 he begins with the subject of space or ‘place’, and since in Tamil grammar the three persons are called மூவிடம் (mu-v-idam) or the ‘three places’, he says that if the first person, our false consciousness ‘I am this body’, exists, the second and third persons will also seem to exist, but that if we scrutinise the truth of the first person, it will cease to exist, and along with it the second and third persons will also cease to exist, and that the remaining single (non-dual) தன்மை (tanmai) — ‘self-ness’, ‘essence’, ‘reality’, ‘first person’ or ‘state’ — alone is ‘self’, our own real state.
   
   In the first two sentences of this verse, the word தன்மை (tanmai) or the ‘first person’, which etymologically means ‘self-ness’, denotes ‘I’, the conscious mind or subject, which always experiences itself as being ‘here’ and ‘now’, in the present place and time; the word முன்னிலை (munnilai) or the ‘second person’, which etymologically means ‘that which stands in front’, denotes the objects that the mind experiences most immediately, namely its own intimate thoughts; and the word படர்க்கை (padarkkai) or the ‘third person’, which etymologically means ‘that which spreads out [or expands]’, denotes the objects that the mind experiences more remotely, namely those thoughts that appear as the objects of the seemingly external world.
   
   Since all objects — both those that we recognise as being mere thoughts (the ‘second person’ objects) and those that appear to exist in an external world (the ‘third person’ objects) — seem to exist only when they are known by our thinking mind (the ‘first person’ or subject), they will cease to exist as soon as we experience the truth that this false ‘first person’ is actually non-existent. And since space is an illusion that is created by the seeming separation between the knowing subject (the ‘first person’) and the many objects (the ‘second and third persons’) that it knows, space will cease to exist as soon as the ‘first place’ (the ‘first person’ or ‘here’) ceases to exist.
   
   In verse 15 Sri Ramana goes on to discuss the reality of time, saying that the past and future stand clinging to the present (that is, their seeming existence depends upon the present); that while occurring they are both the present; that the present is ‘only one’ (that is, the only one time that we ever actually experience); and that trying to know the past or future without knowing the truth of the present is like trying to count without knowing ‘one’ (the basic number of which all other numbers are constituted).
   
   In verse 16 he concludes his discussion of time and space by first asking the rhetorical question ‘நாம் அன்றி நாள் ஏது, நாடு ஏது, நாடும் கால்?’ (nam andri nal edu, nadu edu, nadum kal?), which means ‘when [we] scrutinise, except we, where is time [and] where is place?’ and which clearly implies that when we keenly scrutinise ourself in the precise present place and precise present moment, ‘here’ and ‘now’, we will discover that ‘we’ alone truly exist and that time and place are completely non-existent.
   
   After asking this question, he says that if we are a body, we shall be ensnared in time and place, but then asks another rhetorical question, ‘are we [a] body?’, implying that we are not. He then concludes by saying that since we are ‘one’ (the one non-dual immutable reality), now, then and always, here, there and everywhere, that which really exists is only ‘we’, who are devoid of time and place.
   
   In verses 17 and 18 he teaches us the unreality of our present experience — both of ourself as a finite body and of the world as a collection of finite forms — by contrasting it with the experience of those who have known self.
   
   In verse 17 he says that both for those who have not known self and for those who have known it, the body is certainly ‘I’, but that the difference between them is that to those who have not known self, ‘I’ is limited to the measure of the body, whereas to those who have known self, ‘I’ shines without any limit (and hence neither the body nor anything else exists as other than it).
   
   In verse 18 he says that both for those who have not known self and for those who have known it, the world is real, but that the difference between them is that to those who have not known self, the reality is limited to the measure of the world, whereas to those who have known self, the reality abides devoid of form as the adhara (the support, substratum or ground) of the world. That is, whereas we experience the multiple forms of this world as real, a person who has known self experiences only its formless ground or underlying substance as real.
   
   In verse 19 he says that the dispute whether fate (vidhi) or free will (mati) prevails is of interest only to those who do not know the மூலம் (mulam) — the root, base, foundation, origin or source — of both fate and free will (namely the mind, which misuses its free will and experiences whatever fate results therefrom), and that those who have known the truth of this mind have thereby separated themselves from fate and free will and will not hereafter become entangled with them again. In other words, fate and free will appear to exist only so long as our mind appears to exist, but when we scrutinise this mind and thereby know the truth that it does not really exist, fate and free will will also cease to exist.
   
   In verses 20 to 22 he returns to the subject of ‘seeing’ God, which he had discussed earlier in verse 8 (and also in verses 24 to 26 of Upadesa Undiyar), and once again emphasises the truth that we can experience God as he really is only by knowing our real self and thereby surrendering our false self.
   
   In verse 20 he says seeing God without seeing oneself, who sees him, is only seeing a மனோமயமாம் காட்சி (manomayam-am katchi) — a ‘sight which is composed of mind’ or ‘mind-made vision’ — and that only he who sees his real self, which is the source and base of his false self, has truly seen God, because our real self, which alone remains after the destruction of our false self, which is the root (of all mental visions or experiences), is not other than God.
   
   In verse 21 he asks how we can ‘see’ ourself, since ourself is one (and is therefore not something that we can ‘see’ as an object that is other than ourself), and how we can ‘see’ God (as an object of experience), since we cannot even ‘see’ ourself (as an object of experience), and he concludes by saying ‘ஊண் ஆதல் காண்’ (un adal kan), which means ‘becoming food [is] seeing’. That is, we can truly see God, who is our own real self, only by surrendering ourself entirely to him, allowing ourself to be consumed in his infinite light of pristine self-consciousness, ‘I am’.
   
   In verse 22 he asks us to consider how we can meditate upon or know God by our mind, except by turning our mind back within and immersing it in God, who shines within it (as its essential self-consciousness, ‘I am’) giving it light (the light of consciousness by which it is able to know both itself and the appearance of thoughts, objects or otherness).
   
   In verses 23 to 29 he discusses the rising of our false ‘I’, the mind or ego, and the means by which we can return to our natural state, in which this ‘I’ does not rise.
   
   In verse 23 he says that this body does not say ‘I’, because it is not conscious; that no one says ‘in sleep I do not exist’ (even though our body and mind do not exist in sleep); and that after one ‘I’ (our mind or ego) rises, everything arises. Therefore he instructs us to scrutinise with a நுண் மதி (nun mati) — a subtle, acute, precise and keen mind, intellect or power of discernment — where this ‘I’ rises, and in the kalivenba version he adds that when we scrutinise it thus, it will ‘slip off’, ‘steal away’ or ‘stealthily escape’.
   
   That is, this false ‘I’ appears to exist only so long as we do not keenly scrutinise it, and it disappears as soon as we focus our entire attention upon it (just as an imaginary snake would disappear when we look at it carefully and thereby recognise that it is only a rope). The fact that this is the nature of our mind or ego — our primal thought ‘I’ — is an extremely important truth that Sri Ramana emphasised repeatedly, because it is a vital clue that explains the unique and infallible efficacy of atma-vichara or self-investigation.
   
   In all forms of spiritual practice other than atma-vichara, our attention is directed towards something other than our essential self — our fundamental consciousness ‘I’ — so such practices will only sustain and perpetuate the illusion of the false ‘I’ who is practising them, and hence they can never destroy it. The only means by which we can destroy this illusion is to withdraw our attention from everything else and focus it exclusively upon ‘I’, because just as we would not recognise the truth that the imaginary snake is actually nothing other than a rope unless we looked at it carefully, so we will not recognise (or truly experience) the truth that this imaginary finite ‘I’ is actually nothing other than the one real infinite ‘I’ unless we scrutinise it keenly.
   
   In verse 24 he begins by reiterating the truth that this non-conscious body does not say ‘I’, and then he says that being-consciousness (sat-chit) does not rise (appear or come into existence), but that in between being-consciousness and this non-conscious body one ‘I’ rises as the ‘measure’ of this body (that is, a spurious consciousness ‘I’ rises as ‘I am this body’, assuming the boundaries of bodily existence, being confined within the limits of time and space). This false ‘I’, he says, is chit-jada-granthi (the knot that binds together consciousness and the non-conscious), bondage, the soul, the ‘subtle body’, the ego, the mind and this samsara (‘wandering’, the state of incessant activity, passing through one dream-life after another).
   
   In verse 25 he describes this false ‘I’ as உருவற்ற பேய் அகந்தை (uru-v-atra pey ahandai), the ‘formless ghost-ego’, and says that it comes into existence by grasping form (that is, by attaching itself to a body), endures by grasping form (that is, by attending to thoughts or perceptions of a seemingly external world), feeds and grows (flourishes or expands) abundantly by grasping form, and having left one form it grasps another form. That is, since this ego has no form (no finite and separate existence) of its own, it can seemingly come into existence and endure only when we imagine ourself to be the form of a body, and it flourishes when we attend to any form (anything that appears to be separate from ourself).
   
   Having thus explained how this ‘I’ rises, endures and flourishes, he explains how it can be destroyed, saying தேடினால் ஓட்டம் பிடிக்கும் (tedinal ottam pidikkum), which literally means ‘if [we] seek [search, investigate, examine or scrutinise it], it will take flight’. That is, since this ego is a ‘formless ghost’ and since it can therefore rise and endure only by ‘grasping form’, when it tries to ‘grasp’ (or attend to) itself, which is not a form, it will subside and disappear.
   
   Thus in this verse Sri Ramana explains more clearly the crucial truth that he had mentioned briefly in the last sentence of the kalivenba version of verse 23 — ‘நான் எங்கு எழும்?’ என்று நுண் மதியால் எண்ண நழுவும் (‘nan engu ezhum?’ endru nun matiyal enna nazhuvum), which means ‘when [we] scrutinise with a subtle power of discernment “where does [this] I rise?”, it will steal away’ — namely the truth that our mind or ego is nourished and sustained by attending to anything other than itself, and will therefore be dissolved and destroyed only by attending to itself.
   
   As I mentioned above, this truth — which can aptly be called the ‘first law of consciousness’ or ‘first law of the science of self-knowledge’ — is a fundamental principle that we must understand if we are to recognise the unique efficacy of atma-vichara and the fundamental limitation of every other form of spiritual practice. It is also the key to complete self-surrender, because our false self is sustained by attending to anything other than itself, and hence we can effectively surrender it only by vigilantly scrutinising it, as Sri Ramana teaches us in the thirteenth paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?):

   Being completely absorbed in atma-nishtha [self-abidance], not giving even the slightest room to the rising of any other chintana [thought] except atma-chintana [self-contemplation or self-attentiveness], alone is giving ourself to God. ...

   In verse 26 he states another fundamental principle of this science of self-knowledge, saying that if the ego comes into existence, everything will come into existence, and that if the ego does not exist, everything else will not exist. Therefore he declares the truth that அகந்தையே யாவும் ஆம் (ahandai-y-e yavum am), which means ‘the ego indeed is everything’, and he concludes by saying ஆதலால் ‘யாது இது?’ என்று நாடலே ஓவுதல் யாவும் (adalal ‘yadu idu?’ endru nadal-e ovudal yavum), which means ‘therefore investigating [or scrutinising] “what is this [ego]?” is indeed giving up [or renouncing] everything’. That is, since we can renounce or surrender our ego only by scrutinising it vigilantly to know what it really is, and since everything else is actually nothing other than this ego, scrutinising ‘what am I?’ is truly renouncing everything.
   
   Thus Sri Ramana teaches us that we cannot truly renounce the world merely by becoming a monk, hermit or ascetic, but only by keenly attending to our fundamental consciousness ‘I’, thereby refraining from attending to any other thing. Therefore this practice of atma-vichara or self-investigation is not only complete self-surrender but also absolute renunciation of everything.
   
   In verse 27 he teaches us that atma-vichara is the only means by which we can experience the truth declared in the mahavakyas or ‘great sayings’ of the Vedas such as aham brahmasmi, ‘I am brahman [the absolute reality]’, and tat tvam asi, ‘that [God or brahman] you are’.
   
   In the first line he says that the state in which ‘I’ abides without rising is the state in which we abide as ‘we are that’, and then he asks how we can reach or attain this egoless state, in which ‘I’ does not rise, unless we scrutinise the source from which it rises. Here the words நான் உதிக்கும் தானம் (nan udikkum [s]thanam), which literally mean the ‘place where I rises’ or the ‘rising-place of I’, denote our real self, which is the ‘place’ or source from which our false self rises (just as the rope is the ‘place’ or source from which the imaginary snake arises).
   
   After thus implying that self-scrutiny is the only means by which we can ‘reach’ our natural state of non-rising, he asks another rhetorical question, which reiterates the truth that he stated in the first line by implying that unless we reach this egoless state, we cannot abide as ‘that’ which we really are (namely brahman, the one absolute reality).
   
   In verse 28 he describes the practice of atma-vichara in a more graphic manner, saying that just as we would sink (immerse or dive) in order to find something that had fallen into the water, we should sink deep within ourself with a keenly penetrating power of discernment, thereby controlling our breath and speech, and know the ‘rising-place’ or source of our ego, which rises (as the root of all rising).
   
   In verse 29 he teaches us that such keen self-scrutiny or atma-vichara — which he describes as the practice of ‘having discarded our body like a corpse and not uttering the word “I” by mouth, scrutinising with an inward-sinking mind “where does it [our mind] rise as I?”’ — alone is the path of jnana (or true knowledge), and that other practices such as meditating upon the thoughts ‘I am not this body, I am brahman’ are only aids but are not the actual practice of atma-vichara.
   
   In verse 30 he reiterates the truth that he stated in verse 20 of Upadesa Undiyar and verse 2 of Anma-Viddai, saying that when our mind reaches our heart (the innermost core of our being) by inwardly scrutinising ‘who am I?’ and thereby dies, the one reality will ‘appear’ or ‘shine forth’ (that is, will be experienced) spontaneously as ‘I [am] I’, and then he clarifies that though it ‘appears’, it is not ‘I’ (the ego) but is the whole porul (the one infinite ‘substance’, ‘essence’ or ‘reality’), the porul which is self.
   
   That is, since our real self is infinite, eternal and unchanging, it never truly ‘appears’ (or ‘shines forth’), but it is described as ‘appearing’ (or ‘shining forth’) because at the precise moment that our mind subsides into the innermost depth of our being, we will seem to experience it with an altogether new and fresh clarity. This fresh clarity of self-consciousness or self-knowledge (which is what is sometimes called aham-sphurana or atma-sphurana, the ‘shining forth of I’ or ‘clear appearance of self’) will instantly destroy the last vestige of our mind, whereupon its newness will subside and we will experience it as our eternally clear and ever immutable self.
   
   In verse 31 he reiterates the truth that he stated in verse 15 of Upadesa Undiyar, asking rhetorically what there is to do for one who enjoys the bliss of self, which rose (as ‘I [am] I’) destroying the false self (or ego) — thereby implying that our natural state of clear self-consciousness is absolutely devoid of karma or action (since the mind, the agent or ‘doer’ of all action, has ceased to exist) — and he concludes this verse with another rhetorical question, asking who can understand what this non-dual state of true self-knowledge really is, since one in this state does not know anything other than self.
   
   In verse 32 he returns again to the subject of how we can experience the truth taught in mahavakyas such as tat tvam asi or ‘that you are’ (which he had discussed in verse 27 and 29, and which he mentions again in verse 36), saying that when the Vedas declare that ‘that you are’, we should know and be our true self by investigating ‘what am I?’, and that if instead of knowing ourself thus we just think ‘I am that [reality], not this [unreal body]’, that is due to lack of clear discrimination (or strength of conviction), because ‘that’ (the one absolute reality or God) always abides as our true self.
   
   In verse 33 he clarifies the nature of true self-knowledge, which is absolutely non-dual and non-objective, teaching us that saying either ‘I do not know myself’ or ‘I have known myself’ is a ground for ridicule, because we are not two selves, one of which could be an object known by the other, since being one is the true experience of each one of us.
   
   In verse 34 he teaches us that it is foolish to argue about the nature of the reality instead of abiding as it, saying that since the பொருள் (porul) or ‘essential reality’ always exists as the true nature of each one of us, disputing whether it exists or does not exist, whether it is a form or formless, or whether it is one or two or neither (one nor two), instead of knowing and firmly abiding as it in our heart, where it exists (or by means of an inward merging mind), is மாயைச் சழக்கு (mayai-c-cazhakku), a fault or evil of maya or self-deception.
   
   In verse 35 he teaches us that the only worthy siddhi or ‘attainment’ is atma-siddhi or ‘self-attainment’ and not the attainment of any supernatural power, saying that knowing and being the பொருள் (porul) or ‘essential reality’, which is always attained, is the only true attainment, and that all other attainments are merely attainments experienced in a dream. He then asks whether such attainments will be real if we wake up from our present sleep of self-forgetfulness, and whether those who abide in the state of உண்மை (unmai), ‘reality’ or ‘being’, and who have thereby discarded unreality, will be deluded (by any such false attainment).
   
   In verse 36 he again teaches us that we cannot experience ourself as the one absolute reality merely by meditating ‘I am that’, saying that if we think we are this body, thinking ‘no, we are that’ will be a useful aid in reminding us to abide as ‘that’, but then asking why we should always be thinking that ‘we are that’, since in truth we always exist as ‘that’. To illustrate the folly and futility of meditating ‘I am that’, he asks whether anyone meditates ‘I am a human being’ (implying that just as it is not necessary for a person to think ‘I am a human being’ in order to be human, so in order to be the reality that we always are we do not need to meditate ‘I am that’).
   
   In verse 37 he reminds us that we are always the one non-dual reality, even when we imagine that we are seeking to experience ourself as such, saying that even the contention that ‘duality [is real] in [the state of] spiritual practice, [but] non-duality [is real] in [the state of] spiritual attainment’ is not true, and to illustrate this truth he asks who we are other than the tenth man, both when we are desperately searching (for ourself) and when we have found ourself.
   
   As I explain in a separate article, Non-duality is the truth even when duality appears to exist (which is an extract from pages 310 to 314 of Happiness and the Art of Being), the dasaman or ‘tenth man’ whom Sri Ramana mentions in this verse is any one of the ten dull-witted men in a well-known story, according to which they imagined that they had lost one of their companions because, after fording a river, each one of them counted his nine companions but forgot to count himself, the proverbial ‘tenth man’. Just as each of them was the missing ‘tenth man’ even when he imagined the ‘tenth man’ to be lost, so we are each the one real self even when we imagine ourself to be lacking clear knowledge of who we really are.
   
   However, though our present self-ignorance and all its effects are a mere imagination, just as the loss of the ‘tenth man’ was a mere imagination, so long as we experience any of these effects — even the slightest trace of duality or otherness — we must make effort to know ourself and thereby dispel this illusion of self-ignorance, which is the root cause of all duality.
   
   To emphasise the truth that we must certainly make effort to dispel our imaginary self-ignorance, in verse 38 Sri Ramana says that if we are the agent or ‘doer’ of actions, we will certainly experience the resulting ‘fruit’ or consequences, but that when we know ourself by investigating ‘who is the doer of action?’ our kartritva or sense of ‘doership’ (our feeling that ‘I am doing action’) will depart and all the ‘three karmas’ will cease to exist. This state devoid of the ‘doer’ and his or her ‘three karmas’ is, Sri Ramana says, the state of mukti or ‘liberation’, which is eternal (being without beginning, interruption or end).
   
   As I explain in a separate article, Actions or karmas are like seeds (which is an extract from pages 258 to 261 of Happiness and the Art of Being), the ‘three karmas’ are (1) our agamya karma, our present actions, which we perform by our free will under the influence of our vasanas (the latent ‘seeds’ of our desires) and which therefore generate not only more such ‘seeds’ but also ‘fruits’ to be experienced by us later; (2) our samchita karma, the store of the ‘fruits’ of our past actions that are yet to be experienced by us; and (3) our prarabdha karma, our present destiny or fate, which is the set of those ‘fruits’ of our past actions that God has selected and ordained for us to experience now. These ‘three karmas’ will all appear to be real so long as we mistake ourself to be a ‘doer’ and an ‘experiencer’, that is, an individual who does actions and experiences pleasure and pain, which are the ‘fruits’ or consequences of actions that we have done in the past.
   
   However, if we investigate ‘who am I, who now feel that I am doing actions?’ — that is, if we keenly scrutinise our own essential consciousness ‘I am’, which we now confuse with the mind, speech and body that do actions — we will discover that we are actually not a finite individual who does actions by mind, speech and body, but are only the infinite consciousness that just is. When we thus come to know ourself as we really are, we will cease to mistake ourself to be either the ‘doer’ of any action or the ‘experiencer’ of the fruit of any action.
   
   In verse 39 he emphasises once again our need to make effort to dispel our imaginary self-ignorance, saying that thoughts of bondage and liberation will exist only so long as we experience ourself as ‘I am a person in bondage’, but that when we see ourself by investigating ‘who is this person in bondage?’ our real self, which is eternally liberated, will alone stand as that which is ever attained, and then he asks whether in front (of such clear self-knowledge) the thought of liberation can stand, since the thought of bondage cannot stand.
   
   Finally in verse 40 Sri Ramana answers those who say that the mukti or liberation that we can attain is of three kinds, with form, without form, or with or without form, stating emphatically that liberation is the destruction of the imaginary form of the ego, which distinguishes these kinds of liberation, with form, without form, or with or without form.



3. உள்ளது நாற்பது – அனுபந்தம் (Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham), the ‘Supplement to Forty [Verses] on That Which Is’, is a collection of forty-one Tamil verses that Sri Ramana composed at various times during the 1920’s and 1930’s.
   
   The formation of this work began on 21st July 1928, when Sri Muruganar asked Sri Ramana to write a text to ‘reveal to us the nature of reality and the means by which we can attain it so that we may be saved’ (மெய்யின் இயல்பும் அதை மேவும் திறனும் எமக்கு உய்யும்படி ஓதுக [meyyin iyalbum atai mevum tiranum emakku uyyumpadi oduka], which are words that Sri Muruganar records in his payiram or prefatory verse to Ulladu Narpadu). At that time Sri Muruganar had collected twenty-one verses that Sri Ramana had composed at various times, and he suggested that these could form the basis of such a text.
   
   Over the next two to three weeks Sri Ramana discussed many ideas with Sri Muruganar and composed about forty new verses. As he composed them, he and Sri Muruganar arranged them in order, and while doing so they decided that for one reason or another most of the previously existing twenty-one verses were not suitable to include in the text that he was writing.
   
   In the end, they decided to include in Ulladu Narpadu only three of the original twenty-one verses, namely verses 16, 37 and 40 of Ulladu Narpadu. Of these three, verse 16 was not actually included in its original form, which Sri Ramana had composed in August 1927 (and which is now included in Upadesa Tanippakkal as verse 13, a translation of which I have given on pages 408-9 of Happiness and the Art of Being), but was modified by him while he was composing and editing Ulladu Narpadu.
   
   The principal reason why they decided not to include the other eighteen of the original twenty-one verses was that most of them were not entirely suitable to the central aim of Ulladu Narpadu, which was to teach us ‘the nature of reality and the means by which we can attain it’. In addition to these eighteen verses, they also decided not to include three of the new verses that Sri Ramana composed during the three weeks that he was composing and editing Ulladu Narpadu.
   
   However, since Sri Muruganar did not want the twenty-one verses that they had thus decided not to include in Ulladu Narpadu to be forgotten or neglected, he suggested to Sri Ramana that they should arrange them in a suitable order and append them as an anubandham (an ‘appendix’ or ‘supplement’) to Ulladu Narpadu. Therefore, when it was first published in 1928, Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham consisted of only twenty-one verses, but by 1930 or 31 it contained thirty verses, in 1938 it contained thirty-seven verses, and finally in 1940 it contained forty-one verses, one of which is the mangalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ and the remaining forty of which form the nul or main ‘text’.
   
   Of these forty-one verses, only eleven are verses that Sri Ramana did not translate from any other language but composed originally in Tamil, namely verses 13 to 17, 31 to 33, 35, 36 and 38. Verses 8 and 10 are his Tamil translations of two verses that he first composed in Sanskrit. Verse 11 is his Tamil translation of a Sanskrit verse that Lakshmana Sarma (the author of Maha Yoga) composed recording a teaching that he had given orally. And though the last two lines of verse 12 are a translation by him of verse 84 of Vivekachudamani, a Sanskrit text composed by Sri Adi Sankara, the first two lines are an original composition by Sri Ramana.
   
   The other twenty-six verses of Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham are translations or explanatory adaptations that he composed of verses by other authors. Verse 20 is an adaptation or paraphrase that he wrote of two verses (19.59 and 62) from a Tamil work called Prabhulinga Lilai (which is a verse adaptation of the original in Kannada). Nine verses, namely the mangalam, 21 to 24, 26, 27, 29 and 30, are translations of Sanskrit verses from Yoga Vasishtha. Verses 1, 7 and 39 are translations of Sanskrit verses by Sri Adi Sankara. Verse 5 is a translation of a Sanskrit verse from Srimad Bhagavatam (10.48.31). Verses 9 and 25 are translations of two verses (46 and 47) from Jnanachara-Vichara-Padalam, a chapter (the whole of which Sri Ramana translated separately) of a Sanskrit upagama text called Devikalottara. Verses 18 and 19 are translations of two verses from the Malayalam version of an ancient ayurvedic medical text called Ashtanga Hridayam. Verse 37 is a translation of a Sanskrit verse that was probably composed by Sri Sadasiva Brahmendra. And the remaining seven verses, namely 2, 3, 4, 6, 28, 34 and 40, are translations of verses from various other Sanskrit texts.
   
   The mangalam verse, which is a translation (or rather an explanatory paraphrase) of Yoga Vasishtha 5.8.12, is a dhyana sloka or ‘verse of meditation’ upon svarupa (our ‘own form’ or essential self), in which our svarupa is described as the one truly existing reality, in which everything exists, whose everything is, from which everything comes into being, for which everything exists, by which everything comes to be, and which alone everything actually is.
   
   The first five verses of the nul or main ‘text’ are translations of Sanskrit verses about the efficacy of sat-sanga, a term that literally means ‘clinging to [attachment to, devotion to, contact with or association with] reality [or being]’, but that by extension also means association with those who know and abide as the reality. As Sri Ramana often explained, the most perfect form of sat-sanga is only atma-vichara, the practice of attending or ‘clinging’ to self, which is the only reality, but as an aid to our practice of atma-vichara, we can also be greatly benefited by less perfect forms of sat-sanga such as studying and reflecting upon the teachings of those who know and abide as the reality, or simply being in their company.
   
   Verse 1 is an adaptation of verse 9 of Moha Mudgara (the ‘Hammer on Delusion’, a song by Sri Adi Sankara, which is more popularly known as Bhaja Govindam), ‘satsangatve nissangatvam; nissangatve nirmohatvam; nirmohatve nischalatattvam; nischalatattve jivanmuktih’, which literally means:

   In [or through] the state of sat-sanga [attachment to being], the state of nissanga [non-attachment] [arises]; in the state of nissanga, the state of nirmoha [freedom from delusion] [arises]; in the state of nirmoha, nischala-tattva [the true state of motionless being] [arises]; in nischala-tattva, jivanmukti [liberation in this life] [arises].

   In his Tamil adaptation of this verse, Sri Ramana says that by சத்திணக்கம் (sat-t-inakkam) — friendship, intimacy, harmony or union with being, or with those who abide as being — attachment (to the external world) will leave us; that when such attachment leaves us, mental attachment (that is, our vasanas, which are the subtle seeds of our desires) will be dispersed (or destroyed); that people who are thus freed from mental attachment will perish in that which is motionless; and that they will thereby attain jivanmukti (liberation in this life). He then concludes this verse by adding ‘அவர் இணக்கம் பேண்’ (avar inakkam pen), which means ‘cherish their friendship [or intimacy]’. In other words, he advises us that we should therefore cherish the intimate friendship and company of those who abide as sat, ‘being’ or the reality.
   
   The key word in this Tamil adaptation is இணக்கம் (inakkam), which Sri Ramana used to convey the meaning of the Sanskrit word sanga in the compound word sat-sanga. Whereas sanga means ‘clinging to’, ‘attachment to’, ‘devotion to’, ‘affection for’, ‘contact with’ or ‘association with’, inakkam means ‘friendship’, ‘intimacy’, ‘love’, ‘attachment’, ‘affection’, ‘agreement’, ‘attunement’, ‘harmony’, ‘compatibility’, ‘connection’, ‘alliance’ or ‘union’, so rather than merely meaning outward contact or company, both these words more significantly mean the subtle inward feeling of love, affection, intimacy and attunement of heart.
   
   Therefore sat-sanga (or sat-inakkam) does not merely mean living in the physical presence of a sage who abides as sat, the one absolute reality, but more exactly means profound love for and intense attachment to such a sage and the state of pure being in which and as which he or she abides. Thus, even if we do not outwardly live in the company of such a sage, if we inwardly cling to him with pure love, we will always enjoy the benefit of his true sat-sanga.
   
   Therefore when Sri Ramana advises us to ‘cherish their inakkam’, he does not only mean that we should cherish their outward company, but more importantly that we should inwardly cultivate and cherish true love for them and for the sat or pure being of which they are an embodiment.
   
   In verse 2 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) he says that the supreme state (of true self-knowledge) that is attained by means of clear vichara (self-investigation), which will arise in our heart when we take refuge in சாது உறவு (sadhu-uravu) — intimate friendship with or love for a sadhu (a word that literally means a person who is going or has gone straight to a goal, and that in this context means a sage who knows and abides as self, the absolute reality) — cannot be attained by listening to a preacher, by understanding the meaning of sacred texts, by virtuous deeds, or by any other means.
   
   In verse 3 (which is also a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know, and which he composed for a child who wanted to observe a fast as a niyama or form of religious self-restraint) he asks a rhetorical question that implies that if we gain sahavasa (close association or friendship) with those who are sadhus (those who know and abide as self), all these niyamas (the various forms of self-restraint prescribed for the practice of yoga or for living a virtuous life) will serve no purpose, just as there would be no benefit in holding a hand-fan when a cool southern breeze is blowing.
   
   In verse 4 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse, the original source of which is not known, but which is included in a well-known collection of ‘gems of wise sayings’ called Subhashita Ratna Bhandara as verse 6 of section 3) he says that heat (or mental anguish) will be removed by the cool moon, poverty by the divine wish-fulfilling tree, and sin by the river Ganga, but that all three of these will be removed merely by the precious sight of incomparable sadhus.
   
   In verse 5 (which is an adaptation of Srimad Bhagavatam 10.48.31) he says that tirthas (sacred bathing places), which are composed of water, and daivas (images of deities), which are composed of stone or earth, cannot be compared to those great souls, because they (the tirthas and daivas) will gradually bestow purity (of mind) over a long period of time, whereas sadhus will bestow purity as soon as we see them with our eyes (or as soon as they see us with their eye of grace).
   
   Verses 6 and 7 are two dialogues between a guru and a disciple that are intended to help us determine the true nature of self.
   
   Verse 6 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) begins with a disciple’s question, ‘Who is God?’, to which the guru replies with a counter-question, ‘Who knows the mind?’. The dialogue then continues: ‘My mind is only known by me, the soul’, ‘Therefore you are certainly God, because the srutis [sacred texts] say that God is the one [who alone truly exists]’.
   
   Verse 7 (which is an adaptation of Sri Adi Sankara’s Eka Sloki) begins with a guru’s question, ‘What is the light for you?’, and the dialogue that ensues is as follows: ‘For me, by day the sun, by night a lamp’, ‘What is the light that knows [these physical] lights?’, ‘[My] eye’, ‘What is the light that knows that [your eye]?’, ‘[That] light is [my] mind’, ‘What is the light that knows [your] mind?’, ‘That is I’, ‘[Therefore the light] that shines in [all other] lights is you’, ‘I am only that [the original light of consciousness, by means of which all other lights are known]’.
   
   Verse 8 is Sri Ramana’s Tamil translation of the Sanskrit verse ‘hridaya kuhara madhye ...’, which he had composed in 1915. Though the original Sanskrit version of this verse was completed by Sri Ramana, the first three words were composed by a devotee called Jagadisa Sastri, and when he completed it Sri Ramana signed the name ‘Jagadisan’ at the foot of it, indicating thereby that he had written in it only the ideas that Jagadisa Sastri wanted to express but was unable to do so in verse.
   
   In the first two lines of this verse he says that in the centre of the ‘cave’ that is our heart the one brahman (the absolute reality or one true being) alone shines directly as atman (our true self), (which always experiences itself) as ‘I [am] I’. Then in the last two lines he tells us the means by which we can experience and abide as this one non-dual reality, instructing us to enter (approach, reach or take refuge in) our heart either by our mind sinking (within) contemplating ourself, or by our mind sinking (within) with the breath (restrained), and thereby to be one who abides in atman.
   
   Though most of this verse accurately expresses the teachings of Sri Ramana, which Jagadisa Sastri had often heard him saying, the idea expressed in the final line by the words (in the Sanskrit original) ‘va pavana chalana rodhat’, which means ‘or by restraining the movement of [your] breath’, is not in tune with his teachings, because these words imply that we can enter our heart — the innermost core of our being — and abide as our real self not only by svam chinvata or ‘self-investigation’ but also by breath-restraint.
   
   The fact that by restraining our breath we can restrain our mind only temporarily, that breath-restraint (pranayama) will not destroy or weaken our vasanas or latent desires, and that it is therefore only an aid to restrain our mind but will not bring about manonasa or ‘annihilation of mind’ is clearly taught to us by Sri Ramana in the eighth paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?). Therefore we should understand that the words ‘hridi visa ... pavana chalana rodhat atmanishtho bhava tvam’ (which mean ‘enter [your] heart ... by restraining the movement of [your] breath [and thereby] be you in atma-nishtha [self-abidance]’) in this verse express a belief of Jagadisa Sastri and not an actual teaching of Sri Ramana.
   
   To clarify that the only means by which we can destroy our mind and thereby abide eternally as self is svam chinvata or ‘self-investigation’ and not pavana chalana rodha or ‘restraining the movement of the breath’, when Sri Ramana and Sri Muruganar arranged the order of verses in Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham, they placed immediately after verse 8 a verse that is a translation by Sri Ramana of verse 46 of the Jnanachara-Vichara-Padalam of Devikalottara, which clearly states the truth that only consciousness, which is the pure and motionless ‘I’ that exists and shines in the lotus of our heart, will bestow liberation, the natural state of self, by destroying ‘I’ (our mind or ego).
   
   In verse 10 (which he composed first in Sanskrit and then in Tamil), while elaborating upon the central teaching of advaita vedanta — namely ‘deham naham; koham? soham’ — Sri Ramana explains in his own words why and how this pure consciousness ‘I’ will destroy our ego.
   
   The four words ‘deham naham; koham? soham’, each of which is in turn the first word of each of the four lines of this verse (both in Sanskrit and in Tamil), mean ‘the body (deham) [is] not (na) I (aham); who (kah) [am] I (aham)? he (sah) [is] I (aham)’. The first sentence, ‘deham naham’ or ‘the body is not I’, denotes the initial process of self-analysis by which we gain the intellectual conviction that the body, mind and other adjuncts that we have superimposed upon ourself are not our essential self or ‘I’; the second sentence, ‘koham?’ or ‘who am I?’, denotes the practice of atma-vichara or self-investigation, whereby we will actually experience what ‘I’ really is; and the third sentence, ‘soham’ or ‘he is I’, denote the experience of true self-knowledge that we will gain by practising atma-vichara.
   
   In the first two lines of this verse Sri Ramana explains the first sentence, ‘deham naham’, saying that the body is not ‘I’ because it is jada (non-conscious) like a clay pot, because it does not have any ‘shining’ (or consciousness of itself) as ‘I’, and because our nature (or essential being) is experienced by us daily in sleep, in which this body does not exist.
   
   In the last two lines he explains the last two sentences, ‘koham? soham’, saying that within the heart-cave of those who abide (as self), having known (by self-investigation) ‘who is this ego, the person who poses as I?’ (or) ‘where is he?’, the omnipresent God (arunagiri-siva-vibhu) will shine forth spontaneously as the sphurana (the clarity of pure self-consciousness) ‘he is I’. That is, when we investigate ‘who am I?’ we will experience the truth that ‘I’ is nothing other than the one omnipresent absolute reality, which we call ‘God’ or ‘Arunagiri Siva’.
   
   By placing this verse after verses 8 and 9, Sri Ramana clearly implied the truth that since the real nature of our fundamental consciousness ‘I’ is nothing other than the one non-dual reality, we can destroy the illusory appearance of our mind and thereby abide firmly as our real self only by keenly scrutinising and knowing this consciousness ‘I’ as it really is.
   
   Verse 11 is a Tamil translation by Sri Ramana of a Sanskrit verse in which Lakshmana Sarma recorded what he had once said, namely that the person who is truly born is only he (or she) who is born in his own source, which is brahman (the one absolute reality), by keenly investigating ‘where was it (this mind or ego) born as I?’, and that such a person is munisan (the lord of all sages) and is eternal and ever new and fresh.
   
   In verse 12 Sri Ramana advises us to cease thinking this wretched body to be ‘I’ and to know self, which is ever-unceasing happiness, and then he adds a warning (which he adapted from verse 84 of Vivekachudamani), namely that trying to know self while cherishing this perishable body is like trying to cross a river using a crocodile as a raft.
   
   In verse 13 he teaches us that destroying our dehatma-bhava (the false attitude or imagination that ‘this body is I’) is in effect the perfect performance of all good deeds and the achievement of all virtues and happiness, such as charity (dana), asceticism (tapas), ritual sacrifice, dharma (righteousness or good conduct), yoga (union with God), devotion (bhakti), heaven, wealth, peace (santi), truth, grace, silence (mauna), abidance (as self), death without dying, knowledge, renunciation, liberation and bliss.
   
   In verse 14 he teaches us that by practising atma-vichara we will achieve the true aim of all forms of spiritual practice (each of which can be classified as being a form of one of the four ‘yogas’, namely karma, bhakti, yoga and jnana), saying that investigating ‘to whom are karma (action), vibhakti (lack of devotion), viyoga (separation from God) and ajnana (ignorance of self)?’ is itself karma (the path of desireless action), bhakti (the path of devotion), yoga (the path of union) and jnana (the path of knowledge), because when we investigate ourself thus, we will discover that this ‘I’ (who does karma, lacks bhakti, feels itself to be separate from God, and is ignorant of its real self) does not really exist, that without this false ‘I’ these defects (karma, vibhakti, viyoga and ajnana) never exist, and that the truth is therefore that we permanently exist only as the one real self.
   
   In verses 15 to 17 Sri Ramana ridicules those who desire to acquire siddhis (supernatural or miraculous powers) and thereby to reform the world or rectify all its problems, and he teaches us that such desires would certainly prevent our mind subsiding in the peaceful state of absolute non-activity, in which alone we can experience ‘liberation’, which is the state of true self-knowledge.
   
   In verse 15 he says that the buffoonery of ‘lunatics’ who do not know the truth that sakti (the one divine power) alone enables them to function, yet who exert themselves actively saying ‘we will attain siddhis’, is like the story of a cripple who said, ‘If someone raises me up [enabling me to stand], what measure are these enemies [that is, what power will they have to withstand me]?’
   
   In verse 16 he asks a rhetorical question which implies that since absolute peace of mind alone is liberation, which is in truth always attained, people who set their mind upon siddhis, which cannot be attained without activity of mind, cannot immerse in the bliss of liberation, which is completely devoid of mental turbulence, agitation or activity.
   
   In verse 17 he compares the ‘spurious [unreal or deceptive] soul’ who imagines that he or she is bearing the burden of the world, when in fact God is bearing it all, to the form of a gopuram tangi (one of the four plasterwork figures that stand near the top of a gopuram [a monumental tower erected above a temple gateway] and seem to bear its cylindrical upper section on their shoulders), saying that the attitude of such a person is a mockery. In the second half of the verse he gives another analogy (one that he also used in the thirteenth paragraph of Nan Yar?), asking whose fault it is if a person who is travelling on a train, which is carrying a huge burden, suffers by carrying his own luggage on his head instead of placing it on the train.
   
   Verses 18 to 24 are centred around the subject of the ‘heart’, a term that in a spiritual context means the innermost core or essence of our being — our pure, adjunct-free, non-dual self-consciousness, ‘I am’.
   
   Though the real nature of our ‘heart’ is infinite consciousness, which transcends all forms of limitation, such as time, space or our material body, verses 18 and 19 describe it as being like a lily bud located within our chest, ‘two digits to the right’, and say that in the tiny hole inside its closed mouth the darkness (of self-ignorance) exists along with desire and other passions; that all the major nadis (subtle channels through which consciousness and prana flow) depend upon it; and that it is the abode of the light (of consciousness), the mind and the prana (life-force).
   
   This description of the ‘heart’, which Sri Ramana translated from the Malayalam version of Ashtanga Hridayam (one of the three principal texts of the ancient system of medicine called ayurveda), is obviously not the absolute truth, but is only a relative truth — a fact that appears to be true only from the limited and distorted perspective of our mind, which always experiences itself as a body. Since our mind experiences a body as ‘I’, in its finite view this ‘I’ seems to originate from and to be centred in a particular place within this body, and hence this place, which is the point ‘two digits to the right’ from the centre of the chest, is loosely described as being the ‘heart’ or centre for ‘I’ in this body.
   
   The fact that our real ‘heart’ is actually not this or any other point in our body is clearly indicated in Upadesa Manjari, in which Sri Natananandar records that — in the answer to the ninth question of the second section, ‘What is the svarupa [‘own form’ or essential nature] of the hridaya [heart or core]?’ — Sri Ramana quoted these two verses of Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham and explained that though some texts describe it thus:

   ... in absolute truth (paramartha) the meaning of the word hridaya [heart] is only self (atman). Since it is defined by the characteristics being (sat), consciousness (chit), happiness (ananda), permanence (nitya) and wholeness (purna), for it there are not any differences such as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ or ‘up’ and ‘down’. The motionless place [space, ground or state] in which all thoughts cease is alone called the state of self (atman). When [we] abide knowing its svarupa [essential nature] as it is, there will be no room there for considerations such as that it is either inside or outside the body.

   Since our ‘heart’ or real self is the one infinite whole (purna), how can it be confined within any particular form or located at any particular place? It is the one unlimited consciousness in which everything is contained, and the one true substance that exists as everything, so it is both inside and outside everything, and at the same time neither inside nor outside anything.
   
   In verse 20 (which is an adaptation of verses 59 and 62 of chapter 19 of a Tamil work called Prabhulinga Lilai) Sri Ramana indicates that the only means by which we can experience our ‘heart’ as it really is is to mediate upon ‘I’ with the firm conviction that God is nothing other than that, and that we should persevere in practising such self-meditation until our present illusion ‘I am this body’ is utterly destroyed. That is, he teaches us that God is that which “shines as ‘I’ in the cave of [our] heart-lotus”, and that if we abide as this ‘I’ by the strength of our persistent meditation upon it, and if our abidance as it becomes established as firmly as our sense of ‘I’ is now established in our body, our avidya (ignorance or false knowledge) ‘I am this perishable body’ will be dispersed like darkness in front of the sun.
   
   The next four verses (which are adapted from verses 32 to 38 of chapter 78 of part 5 of Yoga Vasishtha) emphasise the truth that our real ‘heart’ is only consciousness.
   
   In verse 21 (Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.32-3) Sri Rama asks Vasishtha in which great mirror all the worlds that we see appear as a reflection (or shadow), and what is said to be the ‘heart’ of all the living beings in this world (implying that that ‘great mirror’ is the ‘heart’ of each one of us), and Vasishtha replies that the heart of all beings is of two kinds.
   
   In verse 22 (Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.34-5) Vasishtha continues to describe the characteristics of these two kinds of heart, saying that one of them should be accepted and the other rejected. The physical organ called ‘heart’ that is situated in a location within the chest should be rejected (as being of no concern to us in our search for true self-knowledge, since it is just an unreal product of our mind’s imagination), whereas the ‘heart’ whose form is the one consciousness (our essential non-dual consciousness, ‘I am’) should be accepted (as being the sole reality and hence the only means by which we can know ourself as we really are). He concludes this verse by saying that this ‘heart’ that is consciousness exists both inside and outside, but is not that which exists only inside or only outside.
   
   In verse 23 (Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.36-7) he says that only this (the ‘heart’ that is consciousness) is mukhya hridaya (the principal or original heart); that in it this entire world abides; that it is the mirror to everything (the ‘great mirror’ mentioned in verse 21, in which everything that we see appears as a reflection); that it alone is the abode of all wealth (prosperity or happiness); that therefore only consciousness is declared to be the heart of every living being; and that it is not a small part in a portion of the body, which is jada (non-conscious) like a stone.
   
   In verse 24 (Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.38) Vasishtha concludes by saying that therefore by the sadhana (practice) of fixing the mind in the pure heart, which is composed only of consciousness, together with the vasanas (the desires that impel the mind to be active) the breath will automatically subside.
   
   In verse 25 (which is a translation of verse 47 of the Jnanachara-Vichara-Padalam of Devikalottara) Sri Ramana instructs us to banish all attachments from our mind by incessantly meditating in our heart that sivam (the auspicious reality), which is the consciousness that is devoid of all adjuncts, is ‘I’.
   
   When Sri Ramana was asked to point out the most important or useful verses in Yoga Vasishtha, he selected verses 17 to 26 of chapter 18 of part 5, in which Vasishtha teaches Sri Rama that he should know the reality in his own heart yet outwardly act according to his role in this world, as if it were real, and that he should thus be inwardly free from desire and aversion, pleasure and pain, enthusiasm, initiative, effort and action, yet outwardly appear to be bound by all of these.
   
   Since Sri Ramana noticed that only six of these ten verses (namely 17, 18, 22, 25, 19 and 21) had been translated in Jnana Vasishtha (which is a versified Tamil adaptation of the Laghu Yoga Vasishtha, a condensed version of Yoga Vasishtha that contains about six thousand of the thirty-two thousand verses in the full text) as verses 32 to 34 of the chapter called ‘Punya Pavanar Kathai’ (The Story of Punya and Pavana), he translated the other four verses (namely 20, 23, 24 and 26) as two Tamil verses in the same metre as the three verses in Jnana Vasishtha. These two verses are now included in Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham as verses 26 and 27.
   
   In verse 26 (Yoga Vasishtha 5.18.20 and 23) Vasishtha tells Sri Rama that outwardly he should play his role in this unreal world, but inwardly, having investigated all the various states, he should cling only to the one which is the ultimate state devoid of unreality (namely the state of absolutely clear self-consciousness); and that he should outwardly play his role in this world, without ever inwardly losing sight of his knowledge of that (true self) which exists in his heart as the one reality underlying all the various appearances.
   
   In verse 27 (Yoga Vasishtha 5.18.24 and 26) Vasishtha tells Sri Rama that he should outwardly play in this world as one who seemingly experiences enthusiasm and joy, who seemingly suffers anxiety and dislikes, and who seemingly makes effort and initiates action, but who is inwardly free of all such blemishes; and that as one who has been freed from the many bonds of delusion and who is steadfastly equanimous in all conditions, he should play in this world as he likes (or as required), outwardly doing action that is appropriate to his vesa (assumed appearance, disguise or role).
   
   Having thus described in verses 26 and 27 how we should live in this world as an atma-jnani (one who knows self), in verses 28 to 31 and 33 Sri Ramana discusses the state of such an atma-jnani, and in verse 32 he teaches us the truth that though this state of self-knowledge (atma-jnana) is called the ‘fourth’, it is in fact the only real state.
   
   In verse 28 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) he says that a person who has ‘conquered the senses’ (that is, overcome all desire for any experience obtained through any of the five senses) by knowledge (of self) is an atma-vid (one who knows self), who abides as true knowledge (or being-consciousness); and that he (or she) is the ‘fire of knowledge’ (jnanagni), the wielder of the ‘thunderbolt of knowledge’ (jnana-kulisa), the ‘destroyer of time’ (kala-kala) and the hero who has killed death.
   
   In verse 29 (which is an adaptation of Yoga Vasishtha 5.76.20) he says that light (inward illumination, clarity or wisdom) and power of intellect will spontaneously increase in those who ‘see reality’ (that is, those who experience the tattva, the one non-dual reality, which is our own essential self), just as trees in this world shine forth with all qualities such as beauty as soon as spring arrives.
   
   In verse 30 (which is an adaptation of Yoga Vasishtha 5.56.13-4) he says that a mind from which all vasanas (impulses, propensities or desires) have been erased (by the clear light of true self-knowledge) does not actually do anything, even though it seems to be active, just as a person who seems to be listening to a story but whose mind has gone far away does not actually hear it, whereas a mind that is saturated with vasanas is truly active, even though it seems to be doing nothing, just like a person who climbs a hill and falls over a precipice in a dream, even though he seems to be lying motionless here (in our waking world).
   
   In verse 31 he describes a mey-jnani (one who knows the reality) as being ‘asleep in a body of flesh’ (that is, unaware of the body or anything else other than the one reality, which is self) and says that he (or she) does not know the passing states of bodily activity, nishtha (self-absorption) and sleep, just as a person who is asleep in a bullock cart does not know whether the cart is moving, stationary or unyoked.
   
   In verse 32 he says that the transcendent state of ‘waking sleep’ (that is, the state of true self-knowledge, in which one is awake to self, the one reality, but asleep to the unreal mind, body and world) is called turiya (the ‘fourth’ state) only for those who experience waking, dream and sleep (which are in fact unreal); and that since only turiya really exists, and since the other three states do not really exist, it (turiya) is turiyatita (that which transcends the ‘fourth’).
   
   He refers here to turiyatita and says that turiya itself is turiyatita because some texts describe our natural state of ‘waking sleep’ not only as turiya (the ‘fourth’) but also as turiyatita (the ‘fourth-transcendent’), which creates the wrong impression in the minds of some people that turiyatita is a fifth state. The truth is that the state of ‘waking sleep’, which is our natural state of absolutely non-dual self-consciousness, is the only real state, so there is truly no difference between turiya and turiyatita. All differences or dualities appear to be real only in the imaginary perspective of our unreal mind, and hence in the clear light of true self-knowledge they will disappear along with this mind.
   
   In verse 33 he teaches us the truth that though some texts say that an atma-jnani (one who knows self) is free of sanchita (the store of one’s past actions or karmas that are yet to give fruit) and agamya (the actions that one does in this life by one’s own volition or free will) but that prarabdha (destiny or fate, which is the fruit of past actions that are destined to be experienced in this life) does remain to be experienced by him (or her), this is only a ‘reply that is said to the questions of others’ (that is, it is said as a concession to those who cannot understand the truth that the jnani is not the mind or body that experiences prarabdha), and he illustrates this truth by saying that just as no wife will remain unwidowed if a husband (with three wives) dies, so none of the three karmas (agamya, sanchita or prarabdha) will remain when the karta (the ‘doer’ or agent who does karmas and experiences their fruit) is destroyed (by the clarity of true self-knowledge).
   
   In verses 34 to 37 Sri Ramana teaches us the truth that studying too many books can become a serious obstacle in our spiritual path, because the truth that we seek to know exists only within ourself and cannot be found in any book or sacred text. Texts that are either written by an atma-jnani or that record or discuss the teachings of an atma-jnani are truly useful to us only to the extent that they enable us to understand the truth that we can experience the reality only by turning our mind inwards and drowning it in the innermost depth of our own heart, and to the extent that they thereby motivate us to give up seeking anything outside ourself and to seek only the reality that always exists as our essential self, ‘I am’.
   
   As Sri Ramana says in the sixteenth paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?):

   Since in every [sacred] text it is said that for attaining mukti [liberation or salvation] it is necessary [for us] to restrain [our] mind, after knowing that mano-nigraha [subjugation or destruction of our mind] is the ultimate intention [or purpose] of [such] texts, there is no benefit [to be gained] by studying without limit [a countless number of] texts. For restraining [our] mind it is necessary [for us] to investigate ourself [in order to know] who [we really are], [but] instead [of doing so] how [can we know ourself by] investigating in texts? It is necessary [for us] to know ourself only by our own ‘eye of jnana’ [that is, by the clarity of our own self-consciousness]. Does [a person called] Raman need a mirror to know himself as Raman? [Our] ‘self’ is within the pancha-kosas [the ‘five sheaths’ with which we seem to have covered and obscured our true being], whereas texts are outside them. Therefore investigating in texts [hoping to be able thereby to know] ourself, whom we should investigate [with an inward-turned attention] having removed [set aside, abandoned or separated] all the pancha-kosas, is useless. ...

   In verse 34 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) he says that for a person of little learning, his wife, children and other relatives form just one family, whereas in the minds of those who have vast learning there are not just one but many families in the form of books that stand as obstacles to yoga (spiritual practice or ‘union’ with God).
   
   In verse 35 he asks what use is our learning the ‘letters’ (the words written in sacred texts) if we do not intend to erase the ‘letters’ (of destiny) by investigating where we, who have learnt these ‘letters’, were born (that is, from which source we arose as this false learning mind), and he says that those who acquire such learning without attempting to investigate and experience their own source are no better than a sound-recording machine.
   
   In verse 36 he says that rather than those who are learned but have not subsided (surrendered their mind and become truly humble), the unlearned are saved, because they are saved from the ghost of pride that possesses those who are learned, saved from the disease of many whirling thoughts, and saved from running in search of fame (repute, respect, esteem or glory). Therefore he concludes that they are saved not just from one but from many evils.
   
   In verse 37 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse that was probably composed by Sri Sadasiva Brahmendra) he says that though they regard all the worlds as mere straw, and though they have mastered all the sacred texts, for people who have come under the sway of the wicked whore called puhazhcci (praise, applause, appreciation, respect or fame), it is rare (or very difficult) to escape their slavery to her.
   
   In verse 38, in order to teach us that praise and blame are both of no concern whatsoever to a person who experiences the one real self, he asks us three rhetorical questions, namely who there is besides ourself when we always abide unswervingly in our own true state (of clear self-knowledge), without knowing the illusory distinction between ‘self’ and ‘others’, and what it would then matter whoever may say whatever about us, because what would it matter to us if we were to talk to ourself either extolling or disparaging ourself?
   
   In verse 39 (which he composed in 1938 as a translation of verse 87 of Tattvopadesa by Sri Adi Sankara) he says that we should always experience advaita (non-duality) in our heart, but should never attempt to express it in action, and he concludes the verse by saying rather cryptically: ‘O son, advaita is fit in the three worlds; with guru, advaita is not fit; know [thus]’. The ‘three worlds’ here means brahmaloka, vaikuntha and kailasa, the ‘worlds’ or ‘heavens’ in which each of the three principal forms of God, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, are said to reside, so ‘advaita is fit in the three worlds; with guru, advaita is not fit’ implies that though it may be appropriate for us to approach any of these three forms of God and claim ‘you and I are one’, we should never behave towards guru in such a manner, but should always outwardly show all due reverence towards him, even though in our heart we should experience him as our own true self.
   
   Though the one reality that appears as the various forms of God is actually — like guru — only our own essential self, these three forms of God and their respective functions (namely the creation, sustenance and dissolution of this world-appearance) appear as such only within the unreal realm of our self-ignorance, and hence their functions are in no way comparable to the function of guru, which is to destroy the underlying self-ignorance in which the outward forms of God and guru appear to be real. Therefore the reverence that is due to guru is even greater than the reverence that is due to God.
   
   Moreover, since the creation, sustenance and dissolution of this world are actually caused only by the rising and subsiding of our own mind, we can justifiably claim to be performing the functions that are attributed to Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, but we can never claim to be performing the function of guru, because as the embodiment of self-ignorance, our mind can never destroy itself, just as darkness can never destroy itself. Just as darkness can be destroyed only by light, our mind and the self-ignorance that gives rise to it can only be destroyed when it subsides and merges in the clear light of pure self-consciousness, ‘I am’, from which it arose.
   
   Therefore this verse teaches us that though we should always experience our absolute oneness with guru in our heart by subsiding and merging in our essential self-consciousness, which is his true form, we should never rise as this mind and claim ‘guru and I are one’ or behave as if we are guru.
   
   Moreover, since all action and our outward behaviour take place only in the realm of duality, it is both meaningless and futile to try to express non-duality in action. Since we can only experience non-duality (advaita) in our own heart, this verse says, ‘Always experience non-duality in [your] heart, [but] do not ever express non-duality in action’.
   
   Sri Ramana concludes Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham by declaring the ‘essence of the established conclusion of the entire vedanta’ (akila vedanta siddhanta sara) in verse 40 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know), saying ‘அகம் செத்து அகம் அது ஆகில், அறிவு உரு ஆம் அவ்வகம் அதே மிச்சம்’ (aham cettu aham adu ahil, arivu uru am a-vv-aham ade miccam), which means: “If ‘I’ dies and ‘I’ becomes ‘that’, that ‘I’, which is the form of consciousness, alone is remnant”. That is, if our ego dies and our real self is thereby experienced as ‘that’ (God or brahman, the one absolute reality), what will remain is only that real ‘I’, whose form is pure consciousness.



4. ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் (Ekanma Panchakam), the ‘Five Verses on the Oneness of Self’, is a poem that Sri Ramana composed in February 1947, first in Telugu, then in Tamil, and later in Malayalam.
   
   The word ஆன்மா (anma) is a Tamil form of the Sanskrit word atman, which means ‘self’, and hence in the title ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் (Ekanma Panchakam) the compound word ஏகான்ம (ekanma) means ‘the one self’, ‘self, the one’ or (by implication) ‘the oneness of self’, and பஞ்சகம் (panchakam) means a ‘set of five [verses]’. Thus this title implies not only that self is only one (and not many), but also that self is the only one (that is, the only one existing reality), which is the true import of this poem, since in verse 5 Sri Ramana clearly states that self is the only ever-existing and self-shining reality.
   
   Like Ulladu Narpadu and many of his other works, Sri Ramana composed Ekatma Panchakam in venba metre, and he later linked the five verses together as a single verse in kalivenba metre by lengthening the third foot of the fourth line of each verse and adding a fourth foot. This kalivenba version of Ekatma Panchakam is called ஏகான்ம விவேகம் (Ekanma Vivekam), ‘Discernment of the Oneness of Self’, and an English translation and brief commentary upon it by Sri Sadhu Om and me was published on pages 7 to 12 of the January 1982 issue of The Mountain Path, and in May 2009 I posted a copy of it in my blog under the title Ekatma Vivekam – the kalivenba version of Ekatma Panchakam.
   
   In verse 1 he says that having previously forgotten our real self, having imagined a body to be ourself, and having thereby taken innumerable births, our finally knowing and being our real self is just like waking from a dream of wandering about the world.
   
   That is, our present so-called waking life is in fact nothing but one of the many dreams that we experience in our long sleep of self-forgetfulness — self-ignorance or seeming lack of clarity of self-consciousness (a lack of clarity that is characterised by our knowing clearly that we are, but not what we are). Therefore, when — by the practice of atma-vichara or keen self-scrutiny — we experience ourself as we really are and thereby awaken from this underlying sleep of self-forgetfulness, our present life as a finite individual will dissolve completely, along with all the other such lives that we have ever lived, just as all our dreams are dissolved when we wake up from sleep.
   
   In verse 2 he says that a person who asks himself ‘who am I?’ or ‘what is the place in which I exist?’, even though we always exist as our real self, is equal to a drunkard who asks himself ‘who am I?’ or ‘where am I?’.
   
   This verse is not intended to ridicule those who practise atma-vichara correctly, penetrating deep within themselves by focusing their entire attention upon their fundamental consciousness of being, ‘I am’, but ridicules only those who float on the surface of their mind among the waves of thoughts, continuously asking themselves questions such as ‘who am I?’ or ‘whence am I?’ instead of ignoring all thoughts by concentrating their attention on the ‘I’ who is thinking them.
   
   Sri Ramana sometimes described the practice of atma-vichara or ‘self-investigation’ as the investigation ‘who am I?’ or ‘whence am I?’ because it is the effort that we make to scrutinise ourself in order to know what we really are and from which source we have arisen as this thinking mind. He also suggested that we could use questions such as ‘to whom do these thoughts occur?’ or ‘who thinks these thoughts?’ as a means to divert our attention away from all other thoughts towards the consciousness ‘I’ that thinks and knows them.
   
   However, he also clearly explained that keenly vigilant self-attentiveness alone is the correct practice of atma-vichara, and that these questions are just an aid that we can use to regain such self-attentiveness, which is our natural state of clear self-conscious being. Therefore he composed this verse in order to emphasise that we should not blindly ask these questions like a drunkard, but should only ask them as a means to focus our entire attention upon our fundamental consciousness ‘I’.
   
   Another misconception that some people have about the practice of atma-vichara is that it is either an exercise of concentrating our attention upon the right-side of our chest — which is said to be the location of our ‘heart’ (our innermost core or real self) in our body — or an exercise of imagining that we are ‘diving into’ or ‘entering’ this point in our body. Therefore, in order to remove this misconception and to clarify that meditating upon the right-side of our chest or any other point in our body is not svarupa-dhyana or meditation upon self, in verse 3 he says that when our body is actually in self, which is being-consciousness-bliss (sat-chit-ananda), a person who imagines that self is located in this non-conscious body is like a person who imagines that the cloth screen that supports a cinema picture is within that picture.
   
   That is, just as the cinema screen is the underlying base or background upon which a cinema picture appears, so self is the adhara or underlying reality in which our body and everything else appears. Therefore it is only because of our deeply rooted self-forgetfulness or self-ignorance that we not only experience ourself as existing within the confines of this body, but also experience this body as ‘I’.
   
   Since the purpose of atma-vichara is to enable us to know ourself as we really are and thereby to destroy the self-ignorance that makes us experience ourself as being limited within this body, meditating upon any point within this body imagining that that is the location of our real self cannot be the correct practice of atma-vichara. Since our body is only an imagination — a thought that exists only in our own mind, like the body that we experience as ‘I’ in a dream — it appears to exist and to be ourself only because we attend to it, so if we meditate upon it in any way, we will sustain its unreal appearance and thereby perpetuate the self-ignorance that gives rise to it. Therefore, in order to know ourself as we really are, we must withdraw our attention completely from this body and from every other thought or object by focusing it exclusively upon ‘I’, our essential consciousness of our own being.
   
   Our real self is not only the adhara — the support, substratum, ground or foundation — of our body, but is also the sole vastu — substance or essence — of which it and everything else is made. This truth is clearly stated by Sri Ramana in verse 4, in which he asks two rhetorical questions that imply that just as an ornament is not other than gold, the vastu or substance of which it is made, so the body is not other than self. He then concludes this verse by saying that a person who thinks himself or herself to be a body is an ajnani (someone who does not know self), whereas one who takes himself or herself to be self is a jnani who has known self.
   
   That is, our real self, which is the pure non-dual consciousness of being, ‘I am’, is the only real substance that appears as our mind, the false thinking and object-knowing consciousness that experiences itself as ‘I am this body’, and this mind in turn is the substance that appears as everything else that we know. Nothing exists except in our consciousness, because everything is just a thought that our consciousness has formed within itself — and of its substance.
   
   The consciousness that thus forms itself into thoughts — which include all the objects that it knows — is our mind, and this mind is in turn just a limited and distorted form of our original self-consciousness, ‘I am’. Therefore, just as gold is the one substance that appears as all the various gold ornaments, so consciousness, our real self, is the one substance that appears as our mind, our body and everything else that we experience.
   
   Thus, though our body is in reality nothing other than our real self, so long as we experience it as a finite form and not as the one consciousness that it really is, our experience of it as ‘I’ is ignorance or ajnana. Therefore, as Sri Ramana teaches us in verse 17 of Ulladu Narpadu, a person who experiences ‘I’ as being only the limited form of this body is an ajnani (someone who ignorant of his or her real self), whereas anyone who experiences themself as self, the formless and therefore unlimited consciousness that is the only real substance of the body and everything else, is a jnani (someone who experiences themself as they really are).
   
   This one real self, which is the sole substance of everything, is the only thing that always exists and that knows itself by its own light of consciousness, as Sri Ramana teaches us in the first line of verse 5 and in the preceding ‘link words’ of the kalivenba version, ‘தனது ஒளியால் எப்போதும் உள்ளது அவ்வேகான்ம வத்துவே’ (tanadu oliyal eppodum ulladu a-vv-ekanma vattuve), which means, ‘That which always exists by its own light is only that ekatma-vastu [the one substance, which is self]’.
   
   Since self is thus the only existing reality, there is truly nothing that is other than it, so it cannot be made known by words. Therefore in the last three lines of this final verse Sri Ramana asks rhetorically who can reveal this real substance by ‘saying’ (that is, by spoken or written words), when in ancient times even the primal guru Dakshinamurti was able to reveal it only by ‘saying without saying’ (that is, by just being silent).
   
   That is, the real nature of the one self is ineffable, because it could be made known by words only if there were at least two distinct people, a guru to teach it and a disciple to understand it, but since there is nothing other than self, who is to make it known to whom? Therefore we can know it as it really is only by merging and losing ourself in infinite silence — the silence of clear thought-free being — which is its true nature.



5. அப்பளப் பாட்டு (Appala-p-pattu), the ‘Appalam Song’, is a Tamil song that Sri Ramana composed for his mother one day in about 1914 or 1915, when she asked him to help her make some appalams (a thin crisp wafer made of gram flour and other ingredients, also known as parpata, pappadam, poppadum or pappad, which can either be fried or toasted over a naked flame or in hot embers). He responded by composing this song, in which he compares each of the ingredients, implements and actions required to make an appalam to the qualities and practices required for us to experience true self-knowledge.
   
   In the pallavi or refrain (which completes the meaning of the anupallavi and each of the four verses) he simply says, ‘Making appalam, see; eating it, fulfil [or destroy] your desire’. The appalam that he asks us to prepare is the appalam of true self-knowledge, and what he asks us to see is who we really are. By eating this appalam — that is, by experiencing true self-knowledge — we will satisfy our hunger for infinite happiness, and thus we will destroy all our other desires, which are all just distorted forms of our fundamental desire for real happiness.
   
   In the anupallavi or sub-refrain he says that, instead of wandering in this material world craving the fulfilment of other desires, we should satisfy our hunger for real happiness by preparing and eating the appalam of true self-knowledge in accordance with ‘the unequalled and unsurpassed one [non-dual] language’, which is the tattva or reality that the sadguru (the guru who teaches sat, being or reality), who is sat-bhoda-sukha (being-consciousness-bliss, or the happiness of true knowledge), said without saying. The sadguru whom Sri Ramana refers to here is the primal guru Dakshinamurti, and the ‘unequalled and unsurpassed one language’ that he ‘said without saying’ is silence, which is the true language of non-duality.
   
   In verse 1 he begins to explain how we should make the appalam of true self-knowledge, saying that we should break up black gram, which is the pride ‘I’ that grows in the field of five sheaths (the body, life, mind, intellect and the underlying self-ignorance), which are not self, reducing it to powder as ‘not I’ in the hand-mill, which is the jnana-vichara (knowledge-investigation) ‘who am I?’.
   
   That is, our ego, which rises in this body as ‘I am this’ and which Sri Ramana therefore describes as “the pride ‘I’ that grows in the field of five sheaths”, is compared to black gram, which is the principal ingredient in an appalam, and the practice of jnana-vichara — investigating what our fundamental knowledge ‘I am’ really is — is compared to the hand-mill in which we should break up this ego, reducing it to powder as ‘not I’.
   
   In verse 2 he says that we should blend the following ingredients with the pulverised black gram: the juice of square-stalked vine, which is sat-sanga (clinging to being, or to one who knows and abides as being); cumin, which is sama (equanimity, tranquillity or calmness); pepper, which is dama (self-restraint); salt, which is uparati (cessation, which means renunciation of worldly desires and refraining from indulgence in sensual enjoyments and worldly actions); and asafoetida, which is good vasana (propensity, inclination, impulsion or desire) in the heart (or mind).
   
   In this context உள்ள நல் வாசனை (ulla nal vasanai) or the ‘inner good vasana’ means the sat-vasana, the desire or inclination just to be, which alone can root out all our karma-vasanas, our desires to be active.
   
   Having thus described the ingredients and their initial preparation in verses 1 and 2, in verses 3 and 4 Sri Ramana describes the process of cooking the appalam of true self-knowledge.
   
   In verse 3 he says that in the mortar of our heart we should unceasingly and without agitation (or confusion) pound the blended ingredients with the pestle of ul-mukham (introversion or ‘facing inwards’) as ‘I [am only] I’, and then on the board, which is sama (‘evenness’ or ‘levelness’ of mind, that is, samadhi), with the rolling-pin, which is peace, we should continuously, joyfully and without calippu (weariness, pramada or self-negligence) satisfy our desire by preparing and eating the appalam of true self-knowledge.
   
   In verse 4 he says that — in order to experience ourself as தானே தான் (tane tan), ‘self alone [is] self’ (or ‘only I [am] I’) — in the endless (infinite and eternal) pan, which is mauna-mudra (the seal, stamp or mark of silence), in the excellent ghee (or clarified butter) of brahman (the absolute reality), which is heated by jnanagni (the fire of true knowledge), we should always fry (the appalam of self-knowledge) as ‘I [am] that [brahman]’, and should thereby satisfy our desire by preparing and eating the tanmaya-appalam (the appalam that is composed of tat or ‘that’, the one absolute reality called brahman).



6. ஆன்ம வித்தை (Anma-Viddai), the ‘Science of Self’, also known as Atma-Vidya Kirtanam, the ‘Song on the Science of Self’, is a Tamil song that Sri Ramana composed on 24th April 1927 in answer to the request of Sri Muruganar.
   
   That is, Sri Muruganar composed the pallavi and anupallavi (refrain and sub-refrain) of a kirtana (song), in which he said that atma-vidya (the science and art of self-knowledge) is extremely easy, and he then asked Sri Ramana to complete the kirtana by composing the charanas (verses). Sri Ramana accordingly composed the charanas, in which he emphatically confirmed the truth that atma-vidya is extremely easy.
   
   The title of this song, ஆன்மவித்தை (anma-viddai), is a Tamil form of the Sanskrit term atma-vidya, which is a compound of two words: atman, which means ‘self’, and vidya, which means ‘knowledge’, ‘science’, ‘philosophy’ or ‘art’. Thus atma-vidya (or anma-viddai) means the ‘science of self’ — that is, the science and art of true self-knowledge, the practice of which is called atma-vichara or ‘self-investigation’.
   
   In the pallavi or refrain (which completes the meaning of the anupallavi and each of the four verses) Sri Muruganar says, ‘Ah [what a wonder], atma-vidya is extremely easy, ah, [so] extremely easy!’ and in the anupallavi or sub-refrain he says that self (‘I am’) is so very real even to simple-minded people that in comparison even an amalaka fruit in our palm is unreal. That is, nothing is so clear, self-evident and obviously real as ourself, our fundamental consciousness of being, ‘I am’.
   
   In verse 1 Sri Ramana says that though self is always imperishably (indubitably or unforgettably) real, the body and world, which are in fact unreal, sprout up and appear as real; but that when mind (or thought), which is composed of unreal darkness (the darkness of self-ignorance), is dissolved in such a manner that not even a trace of it survives, self, which is the real sun (of pure self-consciousness), will shine forth spontaneously in the space of our heart, the darkness (of self-ignorance) will disappear, suffering will cease and happiness will surge up.
   
   That is, the cause of the unreal appearance of our body and this world, and of the suffering that always follows in their wake, is only our mind, which is the embodiment of self-ignorance — the imaginary darkness in which it arises. Therefore, when this mind is dissolved in the clear light of pure self-consciousness — like darkness in the bright light of the sun — the body, the world and the suffering that they cause will all cease to exist, and only perfect happiness will remain.
   
   In verse 2 he says that since the thought ‘this body composed of flesh is certainly I’ is the one string on which all our other various thoughts are strung, if we penetrate within ourself by scrutinising ‘who am I?’ or ‘what is the place [the source or ground from which this false ‘I’ rises]?’, all thoughts will disappear and self-knowledge (atma-jnana) will shine forth spontaneously as ‘I [am only] I’ within the cave (of our heart), and he declares that this self-knowledge alone is silence (mauna), the ‘one space’ (the non-dual space of infinite being-consciousness) and the abode of bliss.
   
   That is, since other thoughts can arise only after our primal thought ‘I am this body’ has arisen (because this primal thought is the false ‘I’ that thinks all other thoughts), and since this primal thought can rise and stand only by thinking those other thoughts, when — instead of thinking any other thought — it attends only to itself in order to know ‘who am I?’, it will subside and dissolve in the source from which it has arisen (which is our real ‘I’), and hence all other thoughts will disappear along with it. What will then remain is only pure self-consciousness, the clear knowledge that ‘I am only I’, which is the state of absolute silence — complete absence of the ever-chattering mind — and therefore the infinite abode of true happiness.
   
   In verse 3 he asks us what use it is if we know anything else but do not know ourself, and what there is to know if we have known self (since everything else will cease to exist when we know ourself as we really are and thereby destroy the illusion of our mind and everything that it appears to know). He then says that when we know within ourself the one real self, which clearly shines without any difference in all the different souls (or living beings), the bright light of self (atma-prakasa) will flash forth within ourself, and that this is the shining forth of grace, the destruction of ‘I’ (the mind or ego) and the blossoming of true happiness.
   
   In verse 4 he says that for the bonds of action (karma) and so on (that is, action and objective knowledge or experience) to be untied and for the destruction of birth and so on (that is, bodily birth, life and death) to occur, rather than any other path (or means), this path (of knowing self) is extremely easy. He then explains what ‘this path’ is and why it is so very easy, saying that when we settle down and just be, without the least action (karma) of speech, mind or body, ah, the light of self (atma-jyoti) in our heart will be our eternal experience, fear will not exist, and the ocean of happiness alone will remain.
   
   That is, since this path of atma-vichara or scrutinising and knowing ourself does not involve even the least action of our mind, speech or body, but is simply the state in which our mind subsides and remains as it really is — that is, as simple non-dual thought-free self-conscious being, ‘I am’ — it is infinitely easier than any other spiritual practice, all of which involve some form of action of our mind, speech or body. What can be easier than just being?
   
   Since our being is always self-conscious, in order to know ourself all that is required is that we just be — that is, just remain as we really are, clearly and exclusively self-conscious, thereby excluding all thoughts and all actions (which are actually just thoughts). Therefore knowing and being our real self is ‘extremely easy, ah, [so] extremely easy!’ This is the decided conclusion that Sri Ramana knew from his own experience.
   
   Finally in verse 5 he says that ‘in the ullam [heart or mind] that scrutinises [itself] within [by just being] as it is, without thinking anything else’, self — which is called Annamalai (an alternative name of Arunachala, which in this context means ‘God’), and which is the one porul (substance, essence or reality) that shines as the ‘space even to the mind-space’ (that is, as the fundamental space of consciousness in which the ‘space’ of our mind is contained) and as the ‘eye even to the mind-eye, which is the eye even to the [five physical] senses beginning with the eye, which illumine [the five physical elements] beginning with space’ — will be seen. He then adds that ‘grace is also needed’ (in order for us just to be and thereby to experience self as it really is) and therefore advises us to ‘have love’ (that is, to have love for just being, which is the true form of grace), and concludes by saying that ‘happiness will [thereby] arise’.
   
   Thus in this verse Sri Ramana once again emphasises that the easiest — and indeed the only — means by which we can experience ourself as we really are is just to be as we really are by inwardly scrutinising ourself and thereby excluding all other thoughts, and he also emphasises that we can experience this state of ‘just being as we are’ only if we have all-consuming love for it.

... without giving room to even [the slightest] thought, one should persistently cling fast to svarupa-dhyana [self-contemplation]. ...

... If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarupa-smarana [self-remembrance] until one attains svarupa [one’s own essential self], that alone [will be] sufficient. ...

na nirodho na chotpattir na baddho na cha sadhakah |
na mumukshur na vai mukta ity esha paramarthata ||

[There is] no nirodha [stopping, ending or destruction] and no utpatti [arising, origination, birth, production or creation], no baddha [person who is bound] and no sadhaka [person doing spiritual practice], no mumukshu [person seeking liberation] and even no mukta [person who is liberated] — thus is paramartha [the supreme or ultimate truth].

[There is] no becoming [or coming into being], destruction, bondage, desire to become free [or unbound], effort [or] those who have attained [liberation]. Know that this is paramartha [the ultimate truth].

One [unique or peerless] letter (or ezhuttu) is that which always shines spontaneously [or as self] in the heart. Who is able to write it?

One letter is that which always shines spontaneously [or as self] in the heart as that which is [absolutely] pure, as that which bestows the clarity of true knowledge, and as the source of all the letters that are formed [or appear as sounds or symbols]. Who is able to write it?

ekam aksharam hridi nirantaram |
bhasate svayam likhyate katham ||

One letter shines incessantly [and] spontaneously in the heart. How is it to be written?

Silence (mauna) is indeed the state of grace, the one [unique or peerless] language that rises [surges forth or manifests] within.

That state which transcends speech and thought is mauna [silence]; ... it is the perennial flow of ‘language’. ... Silence is unceasing eloquence. It is the best language. ... how does speech arise? There is abstract knowledge [the knowledge ‘I am’ — our fundamental consciousness of being, which is ever motionless and unchanging and is therefore called ‘silence’], whence arises the ego [the spurious consciousness ‘I am this body, a person called so-and-so’], which in turn gives rise to thought, and thought to the spoken word. So the word is the great-grandson of the original source [our silent consciousness ‘I am’]. If the word can produce effect, judge for yourself how much more powerful must be the preaching through silence! ... Preaching is simple communication of knowledge; it can really be done in silence only. ...

Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai – e-book

When I first received this PDF copy of the printed book from the press that printed it, it contained many defects, because on account of some technological error certain characters in it were displayed wrongly. Fortunately my friend John Manetta was able to correct most of the Latin characters and punctuations that were wrongly displayed, but neither he nor I were able to correct any of the Tamil characters that were wrongly displayed. For example, the frequently occurring character ந் (n) in the printed book appears in this PDF copy as மூ (mū), and the less frequently occurring character மூ (mū) in the printed book appears in this PDF copy as void.

I would like here to express my gratitude to all those friends who helped me to make this PDF copy of the printed book available here, especially N. Sankaran, who supervises the publication of most of the Tamil and English books of Sri Sadhu Om; S. Pandurangan of Aridra Printers, who printed the book and created this PDF copy of it; M. V. Sabhapathy and Vasuki Seshadri, who encouraged him to create it; and John Manetta, who rectified many of the technological defects in it.

Upadesa Undiyar – printed book and e-book

As I mentioned above (at the end of the section about Upadesa Undiyar), the English translation of Upadesa Undiyar that Sri Sadhu Om and I wrote was published as a separate book entitled Upadesa Undiyar of Bhagavan Sri Ramana in 1986 and has subsequently been reprinted, so it is not included in this book, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai.

A PDF e-book copy this translation, Upadesa Undiyar of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, is available on David Godman’s website, and it can be accessed either from the brief introductory page there or directly from here by clicking on the following link:

Upadesa Undiyar of Bhagavan Sri Ramana – e-book

Spanish translation of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai

This English translation of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai (along with our translation of Upadesa Undiyar and my translation of Nan Yar?) have been translated into Spanish by Pedro Rodea, and his translation of all them is available on his website, AtivarnAshram, both as a PDF e-book and as a printed book (listed on the Sri Ramana Maharshi page of the Ignitus section).